Up to 70 percent of dental clinics use instruments for drilling teeth that are improperly sterilized, according to a recent survey.
The survey, conducted by a team comprising researchers from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and other entities, called on clinics to change drilling instruments after using them to treat patients as it could otherwise place other patients at risk of viral or bacterial infection.
The survey focused on the sterility of drill handles, which do not make direct contact with the teeth, but can easily become covered in saliva and blood when placed in a patient’s mouth during treatment.
According to Japanese Association for Dental Science guidelines, standard measures against hospital infection stipulate that a used medical instrument must be replaced with one that has been sterilized at high temperatures before a new patient is treated.
The survey covered 3,152 dental clinics in targeted prefectures, with responses received from 891 institutions, or 28 percent, as of January 2014.
When asked whether used drills are replaced with sterilized ones, 34 percent responded that the instrument is changed for each patient, while 17 percent said the drill is not changed, 14 percent said it is sometimes changed and 35 percent said it is changed if the previous patient had an infection. The result shows that a total of 66 percent of clinics do not change their drilling instruments properly, a departure from the association’s guidelines.
The research team conducted the same investigation in other prefectures four times between 2007 and 2013. Those results showed that on average 71 percent of clinics used the same instrument repeatedly without proper sterilization.
According to research team member Hidenobu Senbuku of the NIID, it is likely that many dentists use the same instrument repeatedly after only a simple sterilization or cleaning due to the manpower and costs required to change it for each patient.
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Anyone know how the situation is in the western world?
