Aim:The aim of this study is to compare the various cold sterilization techniques for sterilizing dental burs and diamond points by assessing the microbial growth in culture media on them before and after sterilization.
Materials and methods:The following four disinfectants were used: 2% glutaraldehyde, 5.2% sodium hypochlorite, hydrogen peroxide, and 70% ethanol. There were two main groups taken as group I-carbide burs and group II-diamond burs. A total of 48 samples were collected, 12 samples per disinfectant. Each sample has two burs collected from same patient. One acts as control group which means only microbial count was determined without disinfection. The other one would be determined as microbial count before and after disinfection. The microbial assessment was done using brain heart infusion (BHI) broth and counted by plating in chocolate blood agar and MacConkey agar.
Results:The obtained results were statistically analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test and post hoc test. The results revealed that there was statistically significant difference between sodium hypochlorite and surgical spirit, sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide. There was no statistically significant difference between sodium hypochlorite and glutaraldehyde.
Conclusion:The results of this study revealed that sodium hypochlorite and glutaraldehyde are most effective than hydrogen peroxide, and surgical spirit is the least effective disinfectant. However, there was clinical significance in level of disinfection of all four disinfectants.