[The effect of different kinds and concentrations of disinfectants on decontamination of healing abutments].

Cross infection by remnants of microorganisms represents a latent risk in the dental practice. This study confirms that used healing abutments that have undergone the prescribed disinfection and sterilization procedures are still contaminated. Such residual contamination can be reduced by a simple, additional disinfection procedure. Different disinfectants, in increasing concentrations, were compared with a control group that had not been subject to any additional disinfection procedure. Newly supplied healing abutments were studied, as a second control. The findings show an additional disinfection procedure by immersion in a 5% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCI) solution to result in a significant reduction of contamination of healing abutments, making it a possible valuable addition to existing disinfection procedures. The results of this study might provide an impulse to investigate whether this kind of additional disinfection and sterilization of other dental materials would be of additional value.