An assessment of the incidence of punctures in latex and non-latex dental examination gloves in routine clinical practice

Objective To investigate the puncture resistance of a recently introduced n on-latex, nitrile dental glove in comparison with a latex glove worn during routine clinical dental procedures. Setting Dentists in general dental practice working within the UK during 19 99. Subjects and methods 2,020 gloves worn by five general dental practitio ners were examined for punctures following standard clinical use by a water inflation method. Procedures undertaken during glove usage and length of t ime worn were recorded. Results Following clinical use, 1.9% of the latex gloves and 5.3% of the ni trile gloves had punctures, a statistically significant difference (P < 0.0 001). The puncture resistance of the nitrile gloves was superior to the pun cture resistance of previously tested worn non-latex (vinyl) gloves. There was no evidence of a statistically significant difference between operators for the percentage or incidence of punctured gloves (P = 0.787) after corr ecting fbr glove type. No statistically significant difference was noted be tween incidence of puncture in the control, unused gloves (n = 200 for each type) and the gloves examined following clinical use (P = 0.907 for nitril e, P = 0.613 for later). Conclusion No increase in the number of punctures was noted following clini cal use for either glove type. This could be considered to indicate good pu ncture resistance of the gloves tested in clinical use.