Evaluation of disinfection methods for anesthetic cartridges

Abstract

This study proposes a methodology to disinfect anesthetic cartridges used in the dental clinics of the Federal University of Amazonas. The research used 50 glass and 50 plastic cartridges. The anesthetic cartridges were disinfected through two different methods: immersion and friction. The experiments were carried out in two distinct sets: microbiological test and experimental validation, using 70% Alcohol, Polyvinylpyrrolidone, 2% Chlorhexidine, and 0.5% Chlorhexidine with Alcohol. The analysis of the results was based on mean and standard deviation statistical estimators obtained by the MATLAB software. Experiments conducted on plastic cartridges employing immersion in disinfectants elucidated that 2% Chlorhexidine and 0.5% Chlorhexidine produced better results than 70% Alcohol and Polyvinylpyrrolidone. For the experiments with glass material, 70% Alcohol and 2% Chlorhexidine presented the best results. In the experiments with different types of friction disinfections on the plastic material, the disinfectants 70% Alcohol and Polyvinylpyrrolidone presented similar performances. The disinfectants 2% Chlorhexidine and 0.5% Chlorhexidine obtained the best results compared to disinfectants 70% Alcohol and Polyvinylpyrrolidone. The analysis of experiments carried out with friction disinfection on glass found that the disinfectants 2% Chlorhexidine and 0.5% Chlorhexidine were similar. Moreover, the 2% Chlorhexidine and 0.5% Chlorhexidine disinfectants outperformed 70% Alcohol and 2% Chlorhexidine. Considering the efficacy of disinfection by disinfectant solutions evaluated in this study, the friction method with 2% Chlorhexidine proved to be more effective with the different disinfection methods.