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Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining safety in dental operations has challenged health care providers and policy makers. Studies on dental aerosols often focus on bacterial viability or particle size measurements inside dental offices during and after dental procedures, which limits...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier Ltd.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9304037/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891888 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2022.106049 |
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author | Kayahan, Emine Wu, Min Van Gerven, Tom Braeken, Leen Stijven, Lambert Politis, Constantinus Leblebici, M. Enis |
author_facet | Kayahan, Emine Wu, Min Van Gerven, Tom Braeken, Leen Stijven, Lambert Politis, Constantinus Leblebici, M. Enis |
author_sort | Kayahan, Emine |
collection | PubMed |
description | Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining safety in dental operations has challenged health care providers and policy makers. Studies on dental aerosols often focus on bacterial viability or particle size measurements inside dental offices during and after dental procedures, which limits their conclusions to specific cases. Fundamental understanding on atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols are needed while assessing the risks. Most dental instruments feature a build-in atomizer. Dental aerosols that are produced by ultrasonic or rotary atomization are considered to pose the highest risks. In this work, we aimed to characterize dental aerosols produced by both methods, namely by Mectron PIEZOSURGERY® and KaVo EXPERTtorque™. Droplet size distributions and velocities were measured with a high-speed camera and a rail system. By fitting the data to probability density distributions and using empirical equations to predict droplet sizes, we were able to postulate the main factors that determine droplet sizes. Both dental instruments had wide size distributions including small droplets. Droplet size distribution changed based on operational parameters such as liquid flow rate or air pressure. With a larger fraction of small droplets, rotary atomization poses a higher risk. With the measured velocities reaching up to 5 m s(−1), droplets can easily reach the dentist in a few seconds. Small droplets can evaporate completely before reaching the ground and can be suspended in the air for a long time. We suggest that relative humidity in dental offices are adjusted to 50% to prevent fast evaporation while maintaining comfort in the office. This can reduce the risk of disease transmission among patients. We recommend that dentists wear a face shield and N95/FFP2/KN95 masks instead of surgical masks. We believe that this work gives health-care professionals, policy makers and engineers who design dental instruments insights into a safer dental practice. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9304037 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-93040372022-07-22 Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols Kayahan, Emine Wu, Min Van Gerven, Tom Braeken, Leen Stijven, Lambert Politis, Constantinus Leblebici, M. Enis J Aerosol Sci Article Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining safety in dental operations has challenged health care providers and policy makers. Studies on dental aerosols often focus on bacterial viability or particle size measurements inside dental offices during and after dental procedures, which limits their conclusions to specific cases. Fundamental understanding on atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols are needed while assessing the risks. Most dental instruments feature a build-in atomizer. Dental aerosols that are produced by ultrasonic or rotary atomization are considered to pose the highest risks. In this work, we aimed to characterize dental aerosols produced by both methods, namely by Mectron PIEZOSURGERY® and KaVo EXPERTtorque™. Droplet size distributions and velocities were measured with a high-speed camera and a rail system. By fitting the data to probability density distributions and using empirical equations to predict droplet sizes, we were able to postulate the main factors that determine droplet sizes. Both dental instruments had wide size distributions including small droplets. Droplet size distribution changed based on operational parameters such as liquid flow rate or air pressure. With a larger fraction of small droplets, rotary atomization poses a higher risk. With the measured velocities reaching up to 5 m s(−1), droplets can easily reach the dentist in a few seconds. Small droplets can evaporate completely before reaching the ground and can be suspended in the air for a long time. We suggest that relative humidity in dental offices are adjusted to 50% to prevent fast evaporation while maintaining comfort in the office. This can reduce the risk of disease transmission among patients. We recommend that dentists wear a face shield and N95/FFP2/KN95 masks instead of surgical masks. We believe that this work gives health-care professionals, policy makers and engineers who design dental instruments insights into a safer dental practice. Elsevier Ltd. 2022-11 2022-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9304037/ /pubmed/35891888 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2022.106049 Text en © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Kayahan, Emine Wu, Min Van Gerven, Tom Braeken, Leen Stijven, Lambert Politis, Constantinus Leblebici, M. Enis Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
title | Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
title_full | Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
title_fullStr | Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
title_full_unstemmed | Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
title_short | Droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
title_sort | droplet size distribution, atomization mechanism and dynamics of dental aerosols |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9304037/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891888 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2022.106049 |
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