Dental Aerosols: A Silent Hazard in Dentistry!

Dental aerosol as an infection vector is totally ignored. Aerosols are liquid and solid particles, 50 micron or less in diameter, suspended in air where as splatter is usually described as a mixture of air, water and/or solid substances, water droplets in splatter are from 50 micron to several millimeters in diameter and are visible to the naked eye. Both are produced with the use of dental unit hand pieces and are commonly contaminated with bacteria, viruses, fungi, often also with blood. The most intensive aerosol and splatter emission occurs during the work of an ultrasonic scaler tip and a bur on a high-speed hand piece. Air-water aerosol produced during dental treatment procedures emerges from a patient's mouth and mixes with the surrounding air, thus influencing its composition. The air contained in this space is the air breathed by both dentist and patient, its composition is extremely important as a potential threat to the dentist's health as well as to the patient and the dental assistant. In this review, the author describes about the formation of dental bio aerosols, its hazardous nature to the clinician, patient and the assistant and also the protective measure against it thereby preventing it.