MICROBIAL QUALITY OF DENTAL UNIT WATER IN PRIVATE DENTAL OFFICES OF BANDAR ABBAS, SOUTHERN IRAN.

Bandar Abbas, with a population of over half a million people, has a number of private dental offices. Due to importance of biological quality of water for therapeutic activities, the study was designed to evaluate the microbiological water unit water lines of mentioned dental offices. In this cross-sectional study of 30 randomly selected active dental offices, sample waters were taken from injection of air - water and high-speed handpieces. At the same time from feed water samples were taken. At first all of samples were tested for residual chlorine. Microbial tests were including total coliforms and E. coli experiments, Legionella, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. For statistical analysis software SPSS version 16 and statistical tests, T-test and ANOVA were used. In 66.4% of the feed water source and 100 percent of handpieces and syringes line, water is not meeting the standard. Most microbial load in feed water supply was related to coliform sp, and dominant microorganism load in syringes have been related to Legionella, in handpieces, Pseudomonas has the most microbial load. Only 8 percent of the municipal water supplied to the respective offices residual chlorine standard. High levels of bacterial contamination observed in the results of this study indicate that extensive growth of bacterial films on the dental unit water lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]