Comparison of antimicrobial activities and compressive strength of alginate impression materials following disinfection procedure.

AIM This study investigated the effectiveness of disinfecting solution when incorporated into alginate powder instead of water against some microorganisms and on compressive strength of alginate. MATERIALS AND METHODS For measuring antimicrobial activity of alginate, 60 alginate specimens were prepared and divided into two groups: One with water incorporated in the mix (control) and the other with 0.2% chlorhexidine digluconate incorporated in the mix instead of water. The tested microorganisms were: gram +ve cocci, gram -ve bacilli and yeast (each group 10 samples). For measuring compressive strength, 20 specimens of alginate were divided into two groups: One with water incorporated in the mix (control) and the other with chlorhexidine incorporated in the mix. RESULTS The statistical analysis of antimicrobial efficacy of alginate was performed with Mann-Whitney U-test, which revealed very high significant difference when comparing among groups (p < 0.000). Student t-test analyzed the compressive strength data which revealed nonsignificant difference between groups (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION The incorporation of disinfecting agents into impression materials could serve an important role in dental laboratory infection control and it had no adverse effect on compressive strength of the hydrocolloid alginate. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE The risk of transmitting pathogenic microorganisms to dental laboratories via impression has been considered a topic of importance for a number of years.