INTRODUCTION: Disinfection of surgical guides is mandatory for intraoperative use. Virgin Coconut Oil may be a potent alternative disinfectant; however, its effect has not been fully discussed in dentistry.
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the dimensional accuracy of surgical guides after immersion in three disinfectants: 100% Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO), 2% Glutaraldehyde (GA), and 70% Ethyl Alcohol (EA) and estimate the antimicrobial potential of these three disinfectants.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty identical surgical guides were printed and cut into two halves. The first half was scanned before and after disinfection-disinfection scanned files were compared to post-disinfection ones for the evaluation of the dimensional accuracy. The second half was immersed in sterile distilled water as the control groups for the estimation of the antimicrobial potential of the tested disinfectants. The comparisons between the three study groups were done using the One-Way ANOVA test.
RESULTS: At the morphological assessment of the dimensional accuracy, group VCO was the most accurate with the lowest mean deviation value of 0.12 ± 0.02mm and root mean square value of 0.12 mm, group GA and group EA were less accurate with mean deviation value of = 0.22 ± 0.05mm and = 0.19 ± 0.03mm and root mean square value of 0.22 and 0.20 respectively (P < .001). For the antimicrobial potential, the tested disinfectants showed 100% of reduction in the mean microbial counts.
CONCLUSIONS: Virgin Coconut Oil showed higher dimensional accuracy of the guides than Glutaraldehyde and Ethyl Alcohol. The antimicrobial potential was the same between the three disinfectants.