Dentes humanos no ensino odontológico: procedência, utilização, descontaminação e armazenamento pelos acadêmicos da UNIMONTES

Human teeth are organs usually required during the teaching/learning process in dental courses. This study aimed at evaluating their origin, use, and the disinfection and preservation methods adopted by dental students at UNIMONTES University (Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros, Brazil) for the handling of human teeth. After approval by the committee for ethics in research, a pilot questionnaire was applied for adjustments. Data were collected along the year of 2004. Students who were absent on the day of questionnaire application were excluded, as was the student taking part in the study. The EPI-INFO 2000 program was used for descriptive statistics analysis. One hundred and ninety eight students participated in this project. Most students (99.5%) considered the use of human teeth during undergraduation to be important, and 88.9% mentioned that they were asked to provide human teeth, mostly for use in laboratorial training. Each student provided 4 to 500 human teeth during the whole course (mode 50, average 49, standard deviation 52, median 38), totaling 8,457 teeth. Students acquired the teeth mostly by receiving donations (98.3%), but 1.2% of the students reported having to buy them at prices ranging from R$1.00 to R$10.00. Disinfection of teeth was performed by 89.8% of students, of which 91.14% described the disinfection procedure. A total of 30 procedures were described, from rinsing in water to sterilization in autoclave. Most students (63.20%) related the use of sodium hypochlorite in different concentrations for disinfection. The majority stored teeth in a closed flask (96.6%), in a liquid (68.0%), which was mostly sodium hypochlorite as well. We concluded that UNIMONTES required teeth during its undergraduation course, that most teeth were used during laboratory activities, that they were mostly acquired through donation and that there was no consensus as to the procedures of disinfection and preservation of teeth, leading to the risk of cross infection.