or many years dentists, at the request of orthopedic surgeons, have provided antibiotics to patients with artificial joints. he thinking was that certain dental procedures introduce bacteria into the bloodstream and that bacteria could cause an infection in the prosthetic joint. An infected prosthetic joint is a very difficult complication to deal with and may require removal of the prosthetic joint, immobilization for months, intravenous antibiotics, and new joint. It seemed justified to provide to a few antibiotics to prevent such a complication. The problem is the science was always murky and so we continued providing antibiotics based on a few unreliable case reports even though we thought the premise was a little suspect.

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