Journal of Dental Medicine

Statement of Problem: Pain control is of high importance in dentistry. Prescribing sedatives such a Diazepam, as an anti-depressant and pain threshold elevator drug is able to influence the patient's reaction to pain and reduce it.
Purpose: The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effect of Diazepam in pain reduction following mandibular impacted third molar surgery.
Materials and Methods: In this study, which was conducted in the department of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery Faculty of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical sciences. The patients were divided into two equal groups (n=30). For controls, antibiotics and analgesics were prescribed after surgery. However, except the aforementioned drugs, Diazepam (5mg), three times per day, was prescribed for the experimental group. The amount of mouth opening was also measured as an auxiliary sign after one week. The data were compared by
X2 test after one week.
Results: 60% of the experimental group and 13.8% of the control group felt a weak pain. Statistically significant differences were observed regarding pain feeling between two groups (P<0.001). Severe pain feeling was 34.5% and 10%, for control and experimental groups, respectively.

Conclusion: It is suggested that Diazepam is an effective pain reduction drug following third molar surgery.This drug has also a relative effect on temporary trismus resulting probably from muscle trauma or pain.

Statement of Problem: Today, cross infection control is an integral part of dentistry and many dental health care workers no longer question its necessity. All dental equipments and instruments could be potentially considered as a source of infection.

Purpose: The aim of this study was the evaluation of aerobic contaminations of four disposable materials used in routine dental practice.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, random sampling was performed and tryptone soy broth transfer culture medium was used. After 24 hours of incubation, samples were transferred to specific culture media. (Mckangy, Chocolate agar and Blood agar). Cultured bacteria were stained and studied using gram staining method. The study was carried out in a 17 weeks period.

Results: All suction tips were infected with Bacillus cereus bacterium. Two cases of cotton roll samples showed contamination with Bacillus cereus, 2 cases with gram positive, coagulase negative cocci, 1 case with Streptococcus viridians and one case with Enterobacter class A. One case of anesthetic cartridges was contaminated with Staphylococcus epidermidis and two cases with Streptococcus viridians. Two cases of gutta-percha samples were contaminated with Bacillus cereus.

Conclusion: Based of the findings of this study, the highest level of contamination was observed in saliva ejector tips. Contamination with Bacillus cereus was seen more frequently.