Abstract
Standard precautions have been exercised to prevent nosocomial infection in our department. Given such measures, it appears to be reasonable to conclude that screening for infectious diseases on individual basis is unnecessary. However, it is unclear whether screening for infectious diseases should be performed to prevent transmission of infection from patients being treated in the dental and oral surgery departments. In the present study, we investigated the prevalence of syphilis, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C in patients who sought dental treatment in our department to examine the necessity of screening for infectious diseases.
Subjects: A total of 2, 460 patients who were treated in our department (6, 514 treatments) during the 4 months period in 2005 were enrolled in this study.
Method: Patients were surveyed for syphilis, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C positive.
Results: The prevalence of infection was confirmed in a total of 1, 043 patients (42.4%) involving 3, 647 treatments (56.0%). Among these patients, syphilis, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C were found in 23 (2.2%), 18 (1.7%), and 56 (5.4%) patients, respectively (56, 54, and 138 treatments, respectively). The total positive rate was 9.3%, which was higher than the rate estimated by interview (1.8%). These results indicate that it is difficult to assess the actual prevalence existence of infection by simply taking the patient's medical history with emphasis on infectious diseases.
Conclusion: The present study showed that the actual positive rate was higher than the rate estimated by interview, indicating that dental and oral surgery should only be performed after taking standard precautions and screening for infectious diseases.
