The Critical Role of Dentists in Antimicrobial Stewardship and Education

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a mounting global health threat, steadily undermining therapeutic effectiveness and jeopardizing routine healthcare across disciplines. Within this context, dentistry holds a pivotal - yet routinely underestimated - position in mitigating AMR. Dental professionals generate a significant proportion of antibiotic prescriptions in primary care, with studies consistently highlighting persistent overuse and misuse, such as antibiotics for irreversible pulpitis or localized periapical abscesses absent systemic involvement. This overprescribing is further compounded by inconsistent integration of stewardship principles in dental education, limited cross-disciplinary collaboration, and varying awareness of best practices. Recent research underlines the necessity of unifying medical and dental stewardship efforts, as well as embedding responsive, evidence-based pedagogies to drive sustainable reduction in inappropriate antibiotic use. However, there remains a clear gap in scalable educational interventions and robust interprofessional models that improve prescribing behavior and patient safety.This Research Topic aims to galvanize comprehensive, impactful strategies that reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions in both dental and broader healthcare contexts. By focusing on practical interventions and innovative educational programs, the objective is to identify, implement, and assess approaches that optimize prescribing practices and foster a culture of shared responsibility among dentists, physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. We seek to elucidate the factors propelling antibiotic overuse, test real-world stewardship interventions - including interactive curricula, simulation-based learning, and feedback-driven decision support - and advance multidisciplinary collaboration. An emphasis will be placed on studies that generate actionable insights, validate curriculum efficacy, and track outcomes such as prescribing appropriateness, diagnostic accuracy, and patient safety across varied modalities and contexts.The scope of this Research Topic encompasses both the breadth and the boundaries of advancing antimicrobial stewardship within dentistry, with a focus on educational innovation and interprofessional integration. We invite original research, reviews, implementation studies, and policy analyses targeted at the following themes:• Determinants and prevalence of dental and medical antibiotic overprescription• Development and evaluation of educational interventions or stewardship curricula in dental education• Models for effective interprofessional collaboration in infection management• Integration and impact of point-of-care diagnostics and biomarkers for precision antibiotic prescribing• Barriers and facilitators to stewardship adoption, including ethical, regulatory, and technical dimensions• Implementation science, policy development, and regulatory frameworks for stewardship in clinical dentistry• Assessment of outcomes such as appropriateness, antibiotic volume, duration, safety, and cost-effectivenessWe encourage submissions that transparently report relevant outcomes and methodological considerations, including data management, reproducibility, and scalability of interventions, across undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing dental education. Topic editors: Ivana Šutej, Jelena Roganović Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/75311/the-critical-role-of-dentists-in-antimicrobial-stewardship-and-education