Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
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Cross infection control is an essential part of dentistry and barrier techniques form the core of foundation for infection control. Dentists use gloves as a barrier technique oblivious to the fact that gloves are not impermeable and help in cross infection control. Therefore the purpose of this study was to evaluate the permeability of gloves before and after usage in various dental procedures.
The study was a double blind randomized trial consisting of five brands of loves. Out of five brands three brands were sterile surgical in nature and the remaining two were examination type. The gloves were tested for permeability through air-water submersion test for macro defects and erythrosine dye leakage test. A total of five hundred gloves were assessed for permeability spread across five brands. The results showed that out of five hundred gloves, one hundred and three gloves proved to be defective. Forty gloves were found to be defective having macro defects through air-water submersion test and sixty three gloves
had micro defects as assessed by erythrosine dye leakage test.
The study concluded by evaluating the impermeability status of the five brands of gloves and showed that none of the brands were effective in barrier control providing total protection to the dentist. The five brands of gloves showed varying number of macro and micro defects.
