An investigation of the decontamination of Siqveland matrix bands

Cleanability of dental instruments – implications of residual protein and risks from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

“…48 In addition, cleaning agents are also regulated by the same guidelines and should be validated before use. 48 An investigation into decontamina tion methods has found that it was not possible to clean assembled Siqveland matrix bands using either a washer dis infector or an instrument washer 60 and recommended that matrix bands should be single use only. The authors also indicated that the use of a pre-soaking step using an enzymatic agent enhances the effectiveness of the pre-sterilisa tion cleaning process and that only the retainers should then be processed in an instrument washer.…”

“…The authors also indicated that the use of a pre-soaking step using an enzymatic agent enhances the effectiveness of the pre-sterilisa tion cleaning process and that only the retainers should then be processed in an instrument washer. 60…”

The cleaning of photographic retractors; a survey, clinical and laboratory study

“…26 The fi nding that no method of cleaning is 100% effective has been shown in several studies. 11,27 Both Sanchez and Macdonald 27 studying dental instruments and Whitworth et al 11 with matrix bands found residual contamination even following cleaning in washer-disinfectors. Whitworth et al found a 99.7% reduction in median blood volume following cleaning in a washer-disinfector, however this reduced to 91.4% when they examined 20 clinically contaminated bands collected by 10 general practitioners.…”

“…These include visual inspection, 7 culturing and examining the growth of bacteria 5,8 and detecting the presence of blood contamination. [9][10][11] Although dentistry is considered a low risk for transmission of the disease, the emergence of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has emphasised the need to fi nd techniques to establish that adequate cleaning and sterilisation of all instruments that are used and reused on patients have been carried out. 12 The infective agent for vCJD is a prion protein that is resistant to normal sterilisation techniques.…”

Prion Disease: The Implications for Dentistry

“…Some dental instruments are difficult to clean after contamination with blood or neurovascular tissue, and, even after routine decontamination and sterilization, they may carry significant residues of material (51,104). This is especially important for endodontic files (because they have intimate contact with terminal branches of the trigeminal nerve and are difficult to clean by virtue of their design) (101)(102)(103)(104)(105)(106)(107)(108)(109), matrix bands, retainers (because they frequently become contaminated with blood and other proteins) (101,116,117), and used dental burrs (because they too are difficult to decontaminate) (101,118). It should be noted that thus far, there has been only one study (119) that reported a successfully tested clinical cleaning protocol for rotary nickel-titanium endodontic files before sterilization, comprising 10 vigorous strokes in a scouring sponge soaked in 0.2% chlorhexidine solution, a 30-minute presoak in an enzymatic cleaning solution, 15 minutes of ultrasonication in the same solution, and a 20-second rinse in running tap water.…”