Decontamination of autogenous bone grafts collected during dental implant site preparation: a pilot study

Dental implant site preparation produces bone particles that can be used as autogenous bone graft material for the reconstruction of alveolar bone defects; however, collected bone particles are contaminated with oral microorganisms that may cause augmentation failure due to complications associated with infection. The stringent aspiration protocol, preoperative oral chlorhexidine rinsing, and antibiotic prophylaxis were implemented before collecting bone particles. Nonetheless, collected bone particles were still contaminated with bacteria, and, therefore, decontamination of the collected bone particles with chlorhexidine or clindamycin was considered. The aims of this study were to quantitatively determine the degree of bacterial contamination of collected bone particles and to quantitatively evaluate the efficacy of treating collected bone particles with clindamycin or chlorhexidine solutions. Both of the agents effectively decontaminated the collected bone particles. Comparison between these antimicrobials in further studies could be useful in determining which is most effective.