Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the potential association between the formation of oral bacterial biofilms and the occurrence of antibiotic resistance among 294 oral bacterial isolates.

Study design A total of 100; 25-65year old patients were chosen. Buccal mucosa swabs were collected and cultured in appropriate media, then bacteria were isolated and identified. Then 294 bacterial isolates were assessed for biofilm production by the phenotypic method, i.e., the tissue culture plate method (TCPM). Finally, antibiotic susceptibility patterns of the 294 isolates were done by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method for 7 β-lactam antibiotics (ampicillin, penicillin, amoxicillin, cephalothin, oxacillin, cloxacillin, and cefoxitin) and 7 non-β-lactam antibiotics (tetracycline, co-trimoxazole, ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, erythromycin, lincomycin, and vancomycin).

Results When isolates were exposed to biofilm detection by the TCP method, 9 (3.1%) showed high biofilm formation capacity, 213 (72.4%) showed moderate biofilm formation capacity, while 72 (24.5%) showed weak/no biofilm formation. The isolated bacterial biofilms positively showed that the bacterial isolates that showed high and moderate biofilm formation capacity have a higher rate of resistance to most antibiotics with significant difference (p < 0.0001) than weak/no biofilm formation.

Conclusion The present study demonstrates that aerobic bacteria are still the major bacteria isolates from the oral cavity. Antibiotic resistance in the oral bacterial isolates was found to be associated with bacterial biofilm formation.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

This study was approved by the Medical Ethics and Research Committee of Sana'a University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (Approval No. 217, August 21, 2022). All participants provided written informed consent for oral swab collection.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).