CDA Essentials 2017 • Volume 3 • Issue 4

10 | Volume 3 Issue 4 I ssues and P eople DALHOUSIE AND LAVAL STUDENTSWIN TOP PRIZES AT CDA/DENTSPLY EVENT Winner of the 2016 CDA/DENTSPLY Student Clinician Research Program: Tom Steeves from Dalhousie University. THE BEST IN STUDENT RESEARCH Visit cda-adc.ca/news to read all 10 abstracts submitted for the 2016 program. Students from Dalhousie University and Laval University took top honours at this year’s CDA/DENTSPLY Student Clinician Research Program. Ten dental students, one representative from each of Canada’s 10 dentals schools, entered a table clinic in the competition held in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the PDC/CDA Convention in March. First prize went to Thomas Steeves of Dalhousie University, for research that compared the effects of 1 versus 3 days of antibiotic treatment on surgical site infections after orthognathic surgery. Based on the results of a double-blind randomized controlled trial, Steeves’ study suggests that 3 days of post-operative antibiotics reduced the risk of surgical site infections compared to 1 day, but this benefit may be outweighed by the risks of over-administering antibiotics. “One of our goals in doing this research was to prevent overuse of antibiotics,” says Steeves. “We did a number needed to treat analysis that showed only 1 in 10 patients benefitted from the extended 3-day regimen; so this suggests it’s still an over-administration of antibiotics. Based on our survey of oral surgeons in Canada, we found that over 40% prescribe oral antibiotics for a week following surgery, so over-prescription of antibiotics may be common.” Photographs:TecklesPhotos Inc.