focal infection

Despite gaining mainstream support the focal infection theory had it detractors.

This was called the "focal infection theory", and it led some dentists to advocate dental extraction.

By 2006 the idea that some aspects of focal infection might be valid was finding greater validity especially in immunocompromised people.

There was plague on MacArthur, something new to our doctors, and we don't know the focal infection center or the vector.

By the 1930s, the theory of focal infection began to be reexamined, and new research shed doubt on the results of previous studies.

All these factors have resulted in a disagreement not only about when focal infection theory fell out of favor but also the degree to which it did.

Focal infection theory fell out of favor in the 1930s and was pushed to the margins of dentistry by the 1950s.

Billings went a step further than Hunter, and promoted tonsillectomies and dental extractions as remedies for focal infections.

Bearing the above in mind, it is useful to now examine the resurgence of the focal infection theory of disease in its newer guises."

Severe infections (septicemia, focal infection, immunosuppression) can be treated with doxycycline in combination with an aminoglycoside.

Huggins claims that root canal therapy results in cause focal infections and a variety of maladies, and has claimed that implants can cause autoimmune disease.

Frank Billings formally introduced the focal infection theory to American physicians in 1912 with his lectures at Stanford University Medical School being published in 1916.

For example in 2002 Ingle's Endodontics 5th edition stated "(i)n the 1930s, editorials and research refuted the theory of focal infection".

Meyer was skeptical of autointoxication and focal infection theories (then viewed as the cutting edge concept of scientific medicine)as biological causes of behavioral abnormalities.

A problem of infections in the elderly is that they frequently present with non-specific signs and symptoms, and clues of focal infection are often absent or obscured by underlying chronic conditions.

For example the idea that focal infections of the tonsils or teeth were a primary cause of systemic disease was once considered medical fact, but is now dismissed for lack of evidence.

Hasselgren observed, "[t]he focal infection theory, supported by many including Dr. Price, has been attacked, debated, accepted, criticized, agreed upon, etc. but it has not been covered up."

In 1940, H.A. Reimann and W.P. Havens, published what was perhaps "the most influential critique of the focal infection theory", showing that it was completely unproven.

Other ancillary studies provide supportive diagnostic information, including AFB smear and culture of stool or tissue biopsy material, radiographic imaging, or other studies aimed at isolation of organisms from focal infection sites.

In 1989 a respected study showed a significant correlation between poor dental health and myocardial infarction, which was followed by other studies showing similar results, prompting the dental community to do a cautious reevaluation of focal infection theory.

Price initially did dental research on the relationship between endodontic therapy and pulpless teeth and broader systemic disease, known as focal infection theory, a theory which resulted in many extractions of tonsils and teeth.

Focal infection theory as a primary cause of systemic disease rapidly became accepted by mainstream dentistry and medicine after World War I, largely on the basis of what later turned out to be fundamentally flawed studies providing evidence to support the theory.

Price spent 25 years of his career performing research on pulpless and endodontically-treated teeth, which supported the theory of focal infection, which held that systemic conditions, including complexion, intestinal disorders, and anemia could be explained by infections in the mouth.

In 1938, a former proponent of the theory, Russell Cecil stated that "focal infection is a splendid example of a plausible medical theory which is in danger of being converted by its enthusiastic supporters into the status of an accepted fact."

When the presentation was printed in the 1920 Journal of the National Dental Association a dentist named Titeston praised Kells for his stance and went further saying the tooth extraction craze resulting from focal infection theory qualified as a fad.