Aerosols: The Unseen Threat!

The purpose of this study was to measure aerosol containment when various forms of hand-held high evacuation (HVE) were utilized during ultrasonic instrumentation. Trials were completed using ultrasonic instrumentation on a dental mannequin’s anterior teeth. Glo Germ® Gel was placed on teeth. Two-minute ultrasonic intervals were conducted. Slow speed suction with saliva ejector, saliva ejector adaptor used with HVE, HVEsolo®, Purevac® and Safety Suction® were compared. Grid paper positioned 3 inches from the mannequin, 50-degrees to the floor, recorded contamination. A one-way ANOVA was used to examine how the HVE groups differed on the number of contaminated cells. Results indicated that there were significant group differences, F(4, 144) = 22.23, p < .001, eta2 = .38. Post hoc pairwise comparisons indicated that the control group (saliva ejector) had a significantly lower number of contaminated cells than each of the other groups (p < .01). Hand-held HVE revealed higher contamination.