Detection of Biofilm Production of Oral Bacterial Isolates and Its Impact on the Antibiotic Resistance Profile of These Bacterial Isolates.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the potential association between the formation of oral bacterial biofilms and the occurrence of antibiotic resistance among 294 oral bacterial isolates. Study design: A total of 100; 25-65year old patients were chosen.  Buccal mucosa swabs were collected and cultured in appropriate media, then bacteria were isolated and identified. Then 294 bacterial isolates were assessed for biofilm production by the phenotypic method, i.e., the tissue culture plate method (TCPM). Finally, antibiotic susceptibility patterns of the 294 isolates were done by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method for 7 β-lactam antibiotics (ampicillin, penicillin, amoxicillin, cephalothin, oxacillin, cloxacillin, and cefoxitin) and 7 non-β-lactam antibiotics (tetracycline, co-trimoxazole, ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, erythromycin, lincomycin, and vancomycin). Results: When isolates were exposed to biofilm detection by the TCP method, 9 (3.1%) showed high biofilm formation capacity, 213 (72.4%) showed moderate biofilm formation capacity, while 72 (24.5%) showed weak/no biofilm formation. The isolated bacterial biofilms positively showed that the bacterial isolates that showed high and moderate biofilm formation capacity have a higher rate of resistance to most antibiotics with significant difference (p < 0.0001) than weak/no biofilm formation.  Conclusion: The present study demonstrates that aerobic bacteria are still the major bacteria isolates from the oral cavity. Antibiotic resistance in the oral bacterial isolates was found to be associated with bacterial biofilm formation.