Today’s busy dental practices face a serious challenge: to maintain or increase productivity while ensuring that patient safety remains a top priority. At times, these may seem like incompatible goals. Advances in dental processing equipment, however, have empowered practices to develop safer processes while realizing efficiencies and ultimately, saving money.

Dental autoclave sterilizer plays an important role in dentistry. To prevent accidental injury with the contaminated instruments, special handling should be used to transport the instruments to the cleaning and sterilization area. Packaging cleaned instruments prior to placing them in the sterilizer is a standard of care that protects instruments and maintains their sterility until they are ready for use on a patient. Unprotected instruments may be re-contaminated with dust and spatter or by coming into contact with any number of non-sterile surfaces during transport, storage, tray set-up, and operatory set-up.

The same sets of instrument processing, personal protection equipment, and engineering and work practice control precautions can be expected to protect against all bloodborne disease agents. As such, instruments used on a known hepatitis patient need not be segregated from other contaminated instruments, can be cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner, and do not require special post-cycle maintenance or cleaning of ultrasonic scaler.

Dry heat sterilizers have been used effectively in dental office for many years. Just as with any other sterilization method, dry heat sterilization is highly dependent upon the operator following the manufacturer's instructions for cycle time, temperature, instrument packaging, and loading technique. Because dry air is not as efficient a heat conductor as moist heat at the same temperature, a much higher temperature is required for a dry heat unit to accomplish sterilization.

Steam autoclaves are the most commonly used type of heat sterilizer in dental practices. Two types of processes employ steam under pressure. The difference between the two is the manner in which the machine evacuates the air from the sterilization chamber and then introduces the steam.

Any tools that can not be subjected to moisture or intense heat must be sterilized with other methods. Chemicals are often used during sterilization in dentistry as well. Some of the chemicals used to kill germs and sterilize dental tools are typically iodine or alcohol based, since both of these chemicals are very effective at killing germs.

Autoclaves should be cleaned according to the schedule described in the autoclave's instructions or operator's manual. Often the manufacturer has specific recommendations on the agents to use for the safest and most effective cleaning. If you've lost your manual, contact the autoclave manufacturer for a replacement.