Patient notification exercise following a dentist's admission of the periodic use of unsterilized equipment

Competency assessment for infection control in the undergraduate dental curriculum

“…Indeed, recently 4089 patients from a dental clinic in Scotland were contacted due to a dentists admission of periodic use of unsterilised equipment. Subsequently, 1005 patients were screened for HBV, HCV and HIV although the investigation found no evidence of patient-to-patient transmission (27). A separate report however did demonstrate that patient-to-patient transmission of HBV via contaminated instruments has occurred (28).…”

Costs of a limited patient notification exercise following infection control failures in a dental surgery

“…7,8 In the current climate of NHS efficiency savings, cost is more of a focus than ever before. A responsible body must take financial and opportunity costs into account as part of the risk assessment when deciding whether to undertake a PNE.…”

“…A responsible body must take financial and opportunity costs into account as part of the risk assessment when deciding whether to undertake a PNE. It could be argued that conducting any PNE in response to an incident of this nature does not represent best use of the substantial resources required, given the very low chance of identifying any cases of patient-to-patient transmission of HCV in even a large scale exercise 8 and the choice between incurring a high overall cost or a high cost per patient. While the chance of BBV transmission is very low, however, patient-to-patient transmission of HBV in a dental practice has been documented, 6 as has patient-to-patient transmission of HIV in a minor surgery clinic.…”

Failure of non-vacuum steam sterilization processes for dental handpieces

“…Estimating the risk of harm from handpiece sterilization failures in the context of the estimated millions of dental treatment episodes annually is challenging, especially in the absence of systematic data collating postoperative infection incidents. Most risk assessment and look-back exercises in dental treatment are linked to possible patient-to-patient and dentist-to-patient transmission of bloodborne viruses [27]. Whether known and reported transmission events of hepatitis B and C are linked to the failure of non-vacuum sterilizers and handpieces is often impossible to determine long after a transmission event has occurred [28,29].…”