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Effective
disinfection and sterilization techniques protect patients from infection by organisms contaminating materials or instruments, and practitioners from cross-infection (Hovius 1992; Samaranayake 1993).
There is a need for disinfection methods which are effective while also being cheap, rapid, non-toxic, suitable for a wide range of materials and easily put into practice. While guidelines for
disinfection and sterilization procedures may be laid down, as for example by the British Dental Association, studies have found that good practice is not always followed.
In some situations, effcient disinfection is especially important.
A novel device has been developed for generating u.v. light for routine nucleic acid decontamination of plastics prior to PCR
(Bonass et al. 1999). The device comprises a hollow-walled quartz beaker which can be placed within a domestic microwave oven; mercury vapour between the two walls allows excitation of microwaves into
u.v. light. Thus, a cheap and widely available power source is used, targets are exposed to u.v. from all directions and the beaker gives no shadowing or output degradation. There are many applications
for this type of approach in disinfection and cross-infection control in dentistry and medicine, and for use in the home.
For further details of research regarding this device, click here
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