Do you have a fixation with alcohol?

Learning outcomes:

This article relates to GDC development outcomes C and D.

The objective of decontamination procedures has been firmly in the public’s consciousness since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. But for dental practices, reducing the risk of cross-infection to patients and staff has been an important daily task for decades, and one which is accomplished by a combination of cleaning and disinfection operations.

‘Cleaning’ refers to the removal of any soiling, which may have caused pathogens and proteinaceous material to be present on surfaces, whilst ‘disinfection’ means the deactivation of pathogens to a level that is acceptable, i.e. controlling the number of pathogenic microbes in an environment. Finally, ‘sterilisation’ refers to the complete removal from an environment of microbes that may cause disease. Each of these is a fundamental element of effective infection prevention. Disinfectants work best in clean conditions, so disinfecting without first cleaning can be limited in its effectiveness, if the disinfectant used is unable to provide an effective cleaning action for all the soil types present.