Experience of patients diagnosed as asymptomatic COVID-19 after dental treatment

Ju-Yeon Seo,Jin-Wook Kim,Sung-Tak Lee,Tae-Geon Kwon,So-Young Choi

doi:10.1186/s40902-021-00316-4

Abstract

BackgroundThe potential risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission from asymptomatic COVID-19 patients is a concern in dental practice. However, the impact of this risk is not well documented to date. This report describes our dental clinical experience with patients who did not exhibit symptoms of COVID-19 but were later confirmed as positive for COVID-19.Case presentationOf the 149,149 patients who visited the outpatient clinic of KNUDH and the 3291 patients who visited the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic of KNUH, 3 were later confirmed as having COVID-1 between 1 February 2020 and 28 February 2021. Owing to close contact with these patients during their treatments, 46 dental and medical staff had to undergo quarantine from the date of the patients’ confirmation of COVID-19 infection.ConclusionThe presented cases showed the potential existence of asymptomatic COVID-19 patients after dental treatment with aerosol-generating procedures. Clinicians should be aware of the infection prevention measures and try to protect healthcare personnel from secondary infection of COVID-19 during dental treatments.

Highlights

The potential risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission from asymptomatic COVID-19 patients is a concern in dental practice
We describe the circumstances surrounding contact that transpired between asymptomatic COVID-19 patients and healthcare personnel (HCP) during dental practice
None of the hospital staff tested positive for COVID-19 after coming in close contact with the asymptomatic COVID-19 patients, and no further cases had been linked to the patients

Summary

Introduction

The potential risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission from asymptomatic COVID-19 patients is a concern in dental practice. This report describes our dental clinical experience with patients who did not exhibit symptoms of COVID-19 but were later confirmed as positive for COVID-19. Owing to close contact with these patients during their treatments, 46 dental and medical staff had to undergo quarantine from the date of the patients’ confirmation of COVID-19 infection. Conclusion: The presented cases showed the potential existence of asymptomatic COVID-19 patients after dental treatment with aerosol-generating procedures. Studies have reported that symptomatic, presymptomatic, and asymptomatic patients can transmit SARSCoV-2 to others [2,3,4]. Presymptomatic transmission, which refers to the incubation period for SARS-CoV-2, is the time between exposure to the virus and the onset of symptoms (range, 2–14 days). Oran and Topol [5] reported the prevalence of asymptomatic COVID-19 to range from 40 to 45%, whereas a recent study from Korea showed that the prevalence of initially asymptomatic COVID-19 upon admission was 25.8% [6]

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Discussion

Conclusion