Hearing loss and the high speed dental handpiece.

A pure tone air conduction audiometric evaluation was administered to 137 dentists and 80 physicians. The physicians were found to have better hearing threshold levels, notably in the 4000HZ center frequency range. The left ear of right handed dentists showed a greater loss of hearing ostensibly related to proximity to the noise source. Dental specialists showed a loss pattern similar to those of the general dentists. The findings suggest that there may be a cause and effect relationship between hearing loss and use of the highspeed dental handpiece.