Lidocaine shot during dental treatment may have led to heart attack

An interesting article titled “Acute Myocardial Infarction After a Local Anesthetic Procedure in a Middle-Aged Patient” written by Lei Xiao and et al. appears in the American Journal of Medical sciences (2022). The article discusses how an injection of lidocaine into a 50 year old man during dental treatment possibly induced coronary artery spasm and led to acute myocardial infarction (AMI). In the article the authors discuss how a 50-year old man was admitted to a hospital complaining of chest distress, chest pain, and shortness of breath for the past four hours in March 2020. What had happened four hours earlier, was that the man with no history of high blood pressure, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, or high cholesterol visited a dentist and had a dental work performed. The man was not a smoker and had no known drug or food … Read more

Periodontal Disease associated with heart attacks

In the past on this site links between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease have been mentioned, see for example the posts Additional link between cardiovascular and periodontal disease and Periodontal Disease and Cardiovascular Risk. Periodontal disease is also known as gum disease. Recently, a study appearing in the Journal of the American Dental Association titled “Association between periodontal care and hospitalization with acute myocardial infarction” written by Romesh P. Nalliah and et. al. (April 19, 2022) has shown that those with periodontal disease are at increased risk of ending up in the hospital due to a heart attack. In the study researchers explored periodontal care and heart attack-related hospitalizations and aftercare by analyzing Iinsurance claims data from MarketScan Research Databases, which includes information from hundreds of millions of patients in the U.S. Patients were included if they had been hospitalized in … Read more