ASSESSMENT OF THE RISK OF GLOVE PUNCTURE DURING ORAL-SURGERY PROCEDURES

Purpose. The purpose oi this study was to examine the incidence of glo ve puncture during stages of oral surgery procedures. Method. One surg eon was requested to wear one type of sterile operating gloves during the treatment off patients who required an oral surgery procedure unde r outpatient local anesthesia. Each surgical procedure was divided int o three modules, namely, (I) administration of the anesthesia and rais ing of mucoperiosteal flap, (II) bone removal and delivery of the toot h or root, and, (3) soft tissue repair. A total of 450 gloves worn dur ing these modules were examined for punctures with a water inflation m ethod and 200 unused gloves were tested as controls. Results. The resu lts were analyzed statistically with Fischer's exact test. A total of 12 punctures were recorded, indicating that a glove puncture occurred in 16% of the surgical procedures. Cloves from the left hand (the nonw orking hand) in module III showed the highest incidence of punctures. One puncture was observed in the 200 gloves tested as controls. Statis tical analysis indicated that glove puncture was significantly more li kely to occur in gloves worn on the left (nonworking) hand overall as compared with gloves from the right hand (p = 0.02) and that glove pun cture was significantly more likely to occur in gloves worn on the lef t hand in module III as compared with gloves from other modules (p = 0 .01). Additional precautions may therefore be indicated during the sof t tissue repair part of oral surgical procedures.