Absence of HIV antibody among dental professionals exposed to infected patients

Dental professionals have relatively frequent skin contact with saliva and small amounts of blood of patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Despite this exposure, none of 255 dentists, hygienists and chairside assistants had the antibody to HIV following an estimated 189 or more exposures. These data provide further evidence that casual contact with the saliva of HIV-infected persons, such as may occur in households, the workplace or in public places, is unlikely to result in transmission of HIV to uninfected persons. Because of the small sample size in this study, however, and the relatively high frequency of exposure of HIV-infected patients that we found, we recommend that dental care professionals increase their use of disposable gloves and adhere to the Centers for Disease Control's guidelines for infection control practices for dentistry until more is known about the transmission of this virus.