title: [Electrostatic air filters for dental practice].
abstract: The filtrering effect of an electrostatic filtrattion equipment (Vortronic mod. 75) for air filtration was examined by sampling the air in a general dental practice by means of a Casella Slit Sampler for Airborne Bacteria (C. F. Casella & Co. Ltd., London). A reception, a sterilization, two treatment chairs and a resting cabinet were seperated by 180 cm high walls in a rectangular room of 33 m2 and with an air volume of approximately 80 m3. The staff including one dentist and one or two assistents worked from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m. with a 30 min. lunch break. A mean of 17 patients visited the practice every day. The electrostatic filter was placed in front of one of the treatment chairs and the slit sampler was, for one period, placed at a distance of 5 m from the filter. In the next period both filter and slit sampler were placed within 140 cm from the treatment chair. The air was sampled at noon and at 4 p.m. Micro-organisms from the air samples were cultured on blood agar by incubation at 37 degrees C for 48 hours. After incubation all colonies visible to the eye were counted. A total of 36 air samples were examined. Without filtration of the air the bacterial contamination amounted to 14 cultivable organisms per ft3 air at noon and 54 organisms per ft3 at 4 p.m. The filtration equipment proved to reduce the air contamination to 6 cultivable organisms per ft3.
mesh_terms: D000391:Air Microbiology; D003748:Dental Equipment; D005374:Filtration / Q000295:instrumentation*
vernacular_title: Elektrostatisk luftfilter for tannlegepraksis