Adewole RA, Omilabu SA, Ayodele AOS, Gbotolorun OM, Anorue EI
There is a dearth of consensus national prevalence data on Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) infection in Nigeria and in our institution, a tert iary hospital in southwest Nigeria, and no prevalen ce study is available. This study was carried out to d etermine the sero-prevalence of HBsAg in patients attending our Dental centre for dental extraction a nd other oral and maxillofacial surgery procedures. HBsAg was tested in 53 apparently healthy individua l who attended Dental centre for extraction and other surgical procedures by using clinitech (USA) diagnostic HBsAg. About 5mls of venous blood for each subject was obtained into EDTA bottle, Plasma was separated, samples were tested by Clinitech lateral flow immunochromatograhic method (LFT). The overall sero-positivity to HBsAg in our subjects was 9.4%. The seropositivity was more in males (14. 8%) than in females (3.8%) and was in the 3 rd and 4 th decades of life. Test for statistical significance were not applied due to our limited sample size. Th e study demonstrated that surgical procedures irrespe ctive of type carry a risk of HBsAg infection. Observance of universal precautions should be stric tly adhered to by dentists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons. A pre-operative screening of subjects bei ng prepared for surgery (including dental extraction) for HBsAg is recommended to enable appr opriate preventive measures to be made.
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