Contamination of dental goggles and effectiveness of 3 disinfectants in a stomatology hospital

摘要

We investigated the contamination levels of dental goggles to assess the infection risk in a stomatology hospital and compared the effectiveness of 3 disinfectants, including Swashes (Swashes Enterprise, Co. Ltd., Shenzhen, China), medical ethanol (75%), and chlorine-containing disinfectant (500 mg/L). The results showed that 87.41% of goggles had bacterial contamination. In total, 54% of cultures included gram-positive cocci, making them the major microbial group contaminating the goggles. All 3 disinfectants showed excellent performance in disinfection, and there were no significant differences among the eligibility rates of the 3 disinfectants (97.2% vs 100.0% vs 100.0%, respectively). The study highlights the fact that dental goggles are potential reservoirs of nosocomial pathogens. Disinfection of goggles could be an effective and practical infection control method for dental practice. Copyright (C) 2015 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.