Professional approach to microbial biofilms - Part II. Medical devices and surgical instruments. Avoiding costly and negative consequences of bacterial biofilms.

Biofilm-producing bacteria account for the vast majority of bacterial infections, an important concern in all health care systems. The clinical importance of logistics, meticulous and prudent maintenance and care of delicate and sophisticated surgical instruments and devices, is one of the important keys to successfully prevent, minimize and/or cure infectious oral conditions.

This is the second part of a series comprising two separate webinars of interest for the whole dental team. It covers  the clinical importance of microbial biofilms as well as maintenance and reprocessing of instruments.

Objectives

The webinar is designed to update the whole dental team about bacterial biofilms and:

• cost effectiveness
• instrument corrosion and lifespan
• colonization on surfaces and instruments
• increased resistance
• reprocessing procedures
• cleaning agents
• disinfectants
• environmental concerns
• logistics
• clinical importance of proper care of surgical instruments and medical devices
• traceability and maintenance.

Both wet and dry biofilms associated with medical devices are well known to be linked to healthcare associated infections. Metabolites and bioactive bacterial substances released from both wet and dry biofilm can have deteriorative effects on patient health and treatment outcome.

Bacterial stress such as desiccation and exposure to chemicals can enhance the production of extracellular substances which can further strengthen the biofilm protection.

Bacterial biofilms can affect and destroy medical biomaterials, where bacterial corrosion of metal is an important consequence. In the biofilm society bacteria will coordinate metabolic activities which over time creates a more functional bacterial corrosion cell – not only affecting metals but all types of medical devices.

Quality and design of medical devices and instruments are important factors to increase resistance against negative effects from bacterial biofilm activities.

The characteristics and composition of different surfaces, environmental as well as dental/medical materials, can inhibit the establishment of biofilms.

Proper reprocessing of medical devices is highly cost-effective. The efficacy of cleaning, disinfection and sterilizing processes are dependent upon the type of equipment, consumables, microbiocidal activity, choice of cleaning and disinfection agents, allotted time and motivation of staff.