Letter to the editor on: Oral care and nosocomial pneumonia: a systematic review. einstein (São Paulo). 2015;13(2):290-6.

I appreciated the study “Oral care and nosocomial pneumonia: a systematic review”,(1) which emphasizes the importance of oral care in critical patients, with a particular impact on reducing the cases of nosocomial pneumonia. Currently, the dental surgeons make an effort to implement this type of preventive action in intensive care units. However, I would like to take this opportunity and highlight that preventive oral care should also be delivered to other inpatients at different units. The Hospital de Reabilitação de Anomalias Craniofaciais da Universidade de São Paulo (HRAC/USP) already provides this multidisciplinary service, by giving orientations about oral care and follow-up to all inpatients.(2) It is important to bear in mind that the use of antibiotics associated with inappropriate oral care may trigger postoperative complications, considering the existence of a continuous flow of microorganisms from the external environment to the oral cavity.(3,4)