A guarantee of quality of all steps involved in processing dental materials is essential to achieve security. A descriptive study was made of how Public Dental Medicine Colleges in Brazil process critical materials and determine the patterns of physical, chemical and biological control in their use of hot air ovens and autoclaves to sterilize these materials. The data were obtained with a questionnaire, sent by mail and analyzed with the software EPI-INFO 6.04. Among the 40 Brazilian public Dental Medicine Colleges, only 16 returned the questionnaire. In eight of these, the individuals responsible for the materials and sterilization center had a college degree in a human health field. In 14 institutions, the students were responsible for the cleaning of the instruments, but in six of these they did so outside of the materials and sterilization center. Both the autoclave and the dry heat oven were the method of choice in 13 of the 16 schools. The sterilization routine was routinely monitored by 11 of the institutions. Chemical control through the tape test in the autoclave was used by 13 of the schools, three institutions reported preventive maintenance, and biological indicators were used by seven of the 16 schools. Autoclaves are widely used because of the degree of biological security that this method offers, however physical, chemical and biological controls have not been routinely implemented by most of the institutions.

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been considered the major occupational risk agent for dentists. The Central West region of Brazil is considered an intermediate endemic pattern area, but currently there is no information about the HBV prevalence in dentists of Goiânia, Goiás. This study aimed at the detection of the HBV infection rate and risk factors for dentists of Goiânia and the comparison of the obtained data with the general population and other groups. A randomized sample of 680 professionals participated in this study. All dentists gave written consent for the procedure and filled out a questionnaire about risk factors. The HBV serological markers were analyzed using ELISA test and the presence of anti-HBc was observed in 41 (6.0%) of the dentists. None of them was HBsAg positive. Significant relationships with HBV positivity were observed with gender, the time working as a dentist and the use of incomplete personal protective equipment (PPE). The HBV prevalence found in this group of dentists was lower than the endemic pattern of the general population, other health care workers of the region and the dentists from other regions in Brazil. These results may indicate a positive impact of vaccination considering the high adherence of the dentists to the immunization program (98.4%). Finally, the use of complete PPE by the majority as well as other standard precautions recommended for health care workers could be responsible for the low HBV seroprevalence.

Efetividade de um protocolo de reprocessamento na esterilização de canetas de alta-rotação em autoclave gravitacionalThe effectiveness of a reprocessing protocol in the sterilization of a high speed hand pieces in a gravitational autoclave

Current research characterizes the epidemiological profile of accidents with biological material (BM) that occurred in a government-run dental school and identifies the post-exposure behavior taken by the injured subjects. The cross-sectional retrospective study comprises professors, students and technicaladministration personnel who worked in the laboratory from 2001 to 2008 (n = 566). An electronic questionnaire, prepared by software developed for this purpose, was sent to subjects between May and August 2008 for data collection. Ninety-one (34.2%) out of 266 participants reported some type of exposure to BM. There was no difference between the occurrence of accidents according to the subjects' category (p = 0.496) and sex (p = 0.261). Most of the subjects reported cutaneous exposure (76.9%) comprising saliva (68.1%) and blood (48.3%). The fingers were the body members most affected. Accidents occurred mostly during clinical (34.1%) and surgical (30.8%) procedures. Although the use of protection equipments was high (82.9%), only 26.4% of subjects reported the accident and only 28.6% sought immediate help. Most of the injured subjects failed to report the accidents and did not comply with the guidelines. Others trivialized basic behavior such as the interruption of the procedure to seek medical assistance.