A novel measurement method to estimate the risk of transmitting airborne diseases during dental treatments.

OBJECTIVE

Aerosol-generating treatments in dental practice carry the risk of releasing potentially infectious body fluids (PIBF), resulting in possible disease transmission from one patient to others and to the dental staff. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revealed the urgent need to provide precise and comprehensible safety measures for all kinds of diseases. Dentists and dental staff are more exposed to potentially infectious aerosols than the general population. However, there is no established method to quantify the infectivity of aerosols and splatter as encountered by dentists. This study presents a proof-of-principle setup to differentiate PIBF and drill coolant within dental aerosols and splatter.

METHODS

In the presented model a saliva substitute with a saline tracer dripped into the artificial oral cavity of a dental phantom head. A water-cooled contra-angle handpiece was used to generate aerosol and splatter during a standard dental procedure. Throughout the process, the aerosol enriched air in front of the artificial cavity was absorbed and analysed by measurement devices. Larger droplets were collected by a splatter plate in front of the oral cavity for quantification.

RESULTS

The study showed that saliva in the dental aerosol had a release rate of 19.6 μg/min and in splatter 444.8μg/min. Due to the measuring accuracy of 2.4nL for aerosol and 7.7nL for splatter, even small amounts of saliva substitute fluid can be detected.

CONCLUSIONS

The experimental setup presented and tested here is suitable for detecting and quantifying the various components of dental aerosols and splatter. The setup is highly sensitive, enables the collection of reproducible data, and exhibits a good SNR across all boundary conditions.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The ability to quantify these fractions allows realistic risk assessment of airborne- and contact infections in dentistry and supports the development of effective protective strategies for dental staff and patients.