Dentists and staff should wear protective eyewear and disinfect between patients

An interesting article titled “Blood and saliva contamination on protective eyewear during dental treatment,” written by Nora Bergmann and et al. appears in the 2022 edition of Clinical Oral Investigations (Feb. 14, 2022). The article sought to explore the amount of aerosols, blood and saliva splashes on protective eyewear worn during dental treatments. The authors also looked at the effectiveness of disinfection of the eyewear. In the study the authors used forensic techniques to analyze 53 protective eyewear shields worn by dental staff during aerosol-producing dental treatments. The protective eyewear were worn during dental treatments like supragingival cleaning, carious cavity preparation, and subgingival periodontal instrumentation. To detect blood contamination, luminol was applied on the surface of the eyewear shilds. The authors found that a macroscopically detectable amount of contamination was found on 60.4% of the protective eyewear shields that had … Read more

Acquiring Hepatitis C at the Oral Surgery Office

One of the complications that can occur from wisdom teeth removal is to have an acquired infection. A particularly devastating infection that can be acquired is hepatitis C. There is one known case of a person acquiring hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV while at an oral surgery office which occurred in the fall of 2012 in Oklahoma. The patient received implants and also had a tooth removed in preparation. This case was covered at the time on this blog in the post Dental Patients Warned of Possible HIV and Hepatitis Exposure Due to Oral Surgeon’s Practices and in the media at the time such as in the article 7,000 patients warned of possible hepatitis, HIV exposure by Donna Domino appearing on DrBicuspid.com on March 29, 2013. After time was given for facts to come out, an article titled “Confirmed Transmission … Read more