| Introduction: In oral and maxillofacial surgeries, nasotracheal
intubation is carried out to increase the surgeon’s access to the
oral cavity. During nasotracheal intubation the risk of trauma is
higher than that in orotracheal intubation as there is passage
of the tube through the mucosa of the nasal tract due to which
bacteria might get transported into the trachea.
Aim: To evaluate the effect of 2% nasal mupirocin ointment
before and after nasotracheal intubation on decreasing the
complications of intubation for oral and maxillofacial surgeries.
Materials and Methods: In the present single blinded
randomised controlled clinical trial, 44 patients were randomly
assigned to two equal groups. A sterile swab was used, eight
to 10 hours before nasotracheal intubation, to take a sample for
culturing from the vestibule of nostrils and the anterior septum
of the patients. In Group 1, 2% nasal mupirocin ointment
was applied to the vestibules of both nostrils and the anterior
septum. In Group 2, no intervention was carried out. After
general anaesthesia and extubation, microbial cultures were
prepared from the 4 cm distal end of the tube and antibiogram
test was carried out. Also, the patients were compared in terms
of the severity of nasal bleeding, the ease of breathing through
the nose after nasotracheal intubation. Data were analysed with
suitable statistical tests.
Results: In the mupirocin group, 27.2% of the subjects were
carriers of Staphylococcus aureus in the nasal cavity but no
S. aureus was detected at the distal end of nasotracheal tube
after extubation. In the control group, 18.2% of the subjects
were carriers of Staphylococcus aureus in the nasal cavity
but there was no change in the number of S. aureus counts
at the distal end of nasotracheal tube (p-value<0.001). After
extubation, in the mupirocin and control groups, 18.2% and
22.7% of the subjects, respectively, exhibited severe bleeding
(p-value=0.001). In the mupirocin and control groups, 86.4%
and 59.1% of the subjects had easy extubation, respectively
(p-value=0.044). In the mupirocin and control groups, 9.1% and
63.7% of the subjects immediately after regaining consciousness
and 9.1% and 54.6% three hours after extubation had difficulty
in breathing, respectively (p-value=0.001).
Conclusion: Use of mupirocin before nasotracheal intubation
decreased the complications of nasal intubation in addition to
decreasing the risk of colonization of S. aureus and other gramnegative
bacteria. |