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| Dr. Kunio Komiyama has developed systems for monitoring dental office sterilizers and dental-unit waterlines.
Photo by Wayne Eyre |
By Wayne Eyre
It’s not for nothing that dentists wear protective eyewear, cloth masks, and latex gloves nowadays.
Since the early 1980s – which saw dramatic increases in such transmissible, blood-borne pathogens as Hepatitis B and C, AIDS, syphilus, gonorrhea, herpes, and tuberculosis – infection control protocols have become an integral part of professional dental care.
Nevertheless, Dr. Kunio Komiyama, College of Dentistry, says he would like to see enhanced monitoring of office sterilizers mandated in Saskatchewan, as it is in parts of Canada and the U.S.
Any such mandating would come from the Saskatchewan College of Dental Surgeons.
Sterilizing of dental "hand pieces" is achieved through such techniques as steam autoclave and pressurized chemical vapor.
As director of the College’s Infection Control Quality Assurance Services program, Komiyama says that biological (spore-test) monitoring of sterilizers should be done at least monthly, as recommended by the Canadian Dental Association – and that dentists also take various CDA-recommended steps to reduce any potential risk of dental unit waterline organisms that can cause water-borne infection, such as through E. coli bacteria.
He notes that the American Dental Association prescribes weekly testing of office sterilizers, and that hospital dental services generally monitor theirs daily.
With his expertise in infection control, Komiyama has developed systems for sterilizer monitoring and for dental-unit waterline monitoring, each similar to other such systems available from other dental schools in Canada and from the private sector.
About 100 dentists from across the country currently subscribe to each program – $120 a year for the office sterilizer program; $15 a unit/test for the water test. Komiyama hopes to double the number of subscribers in 2001.
Money from these subscriptions is dedicated to Dentistry’s $500 "Bird Man" scholarships, at least three of which are annually awarded to dentistry students who demonstrate excellent infection control measures in their clinical practice. (During the bubonic plague in 17th-century Europe, men donned large smocks and bird-like masks for protection against the disease.)
For more information about Dr. Komiyama’s infection control program, phone 966-5143.
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