Magnus Olsson, PhD, Faculty of Dentistry, Malmö University, has investigated snus use and the risk of complications during dental and gastrointestinal surgery. He has had access to national health registers and a research database with over five million people who visited the Public Dental Service over a 30-year period.
More antibiotics for women
Magnus Olsson was able to show that the prescription of antibiotics after dental surgery was approximately 17 percent more common among women who used snus than among women who did not. The result was statistically significant.
– What lies behind the figures regarding the increased risk of antibiotic prescription among women is unclear. This work does not show that, says Magnus Olsson in a press release from Malmö University.
Only women who used snus needed more antibiotics. Men who used snus did not differ from men who did not use snus. Magnus Olsson does not know why this is so.
–For example, it could be due to biological differences or it could be completely different factors, such as mental illness. More research is needed here to clarify which mechanisms may be involved.
Higher risk of pneumonia
Magnus Olsson also found that people who use snus, but have never smoked, had a slightly higher risk of suffering complications and needing to be hospitalized again after gastrointestinal surgery. This was particularly true for men.
Snus users also had an increased risk of pneumonia – approximately three times higher compared to people who had never used any form of tobacco. Magnus Olsson emphasizes, however, that the latter result must be interpreted with great caution because the data includes relatively few cases.
– Overall, the studies indicate that snus use is not risk-free in connection with surgery, although many questions are still unanswered, says Magnus Olsson.
