Citation: Sukegawa, S.; Sukegawa, Y.; Hasegawa, K.; Ono, S.; Nakamura, T.; Fujimura, A.; Fujisawa, A.; Nakano, K.; Takabatake, K.; Kawai, H.; et al. The Effectiveness of Pre-Operative Screening Tests in Determining Viral Infections in Patients Undergoing Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Healthcare 2022, 10, 1348. https://doi.org/10.3390/ healthcare10071348 Academic Editor: Iole Vozza Received: 13 June 2022 Accepted: 18 July 2022 Published: 20 July 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). healthcare Article The Effectiveness of Pre-Operative Screening Tests in Determining Viral Infections in Patients Undergoing Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Shintaro Sukegawa 1,2, * , Yuka Sukegawa 1 , Kazuaki Hasegawa 1 , Sawako Ono 3 , Tomoya Nakamura 1 , Ai Fujimura 1 , Ayaka Fujisawa 1 , Keisuke Nakano 2 , Kiyofumi Takabatake 2 , Hotaka Kawai 2 , Yumika Mukainaka 2 , Hitoshi Nagatsuka 2 and Yoshihiko Furuki 1 1 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Kagawa Prefectural Central Hospital, 1-2-1, Asahi-machi, Takamatsu 760-8557, Japan; yuka611225@gmail.com (Y.S.); de421040@s.okayama-u.ac.jp (K.H.); tmy.nakamura@s.okayama-u.ac.jp (T.N.); sugar.x.48@gmail.com (A.F.); ayafuji05@gmail.com (A.F.); furukiy@ma.pikara.ne.jp (Y.F.) 2 Department of Oral Pathology and Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8525, Japan; pir19btp@okayama-u.ac.jp (K.N.); gmd422094@s.okayama-u.ac.jp (K.T.); de18018@s.okayama-u.ac.jp (H.K.); mukainaka.y@gmail.com (Y.M.); jin@md.okayama-u.ac.jp (H.N.) 3 Department of Pathology, Kagawa Prefectural Central Hospital, Takamatsu 760-8557, Japan; de19008@s.okayama-u.ac.jp * Correspondence: gouwan19@gmail.com; Tel.: +81-87-811-3333 Abstract: We analyzed the rate of patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection diagnosed by pre-operative screening and estimated its cost. We retrospectively analyzed patients who underwent elective surgery at our maxillofacial surgery department between April 2014 and March 2022. We compared the number of patients with each infection identified by pre-operative screening and a pre-operative questionnaire. We also compared the prevalence of infections with varying age, sex, and oral diseases, and calculated the cost of screening per positive result. The prevalence of HBV, HCV, and HIV was 0.39% (62/15,842), 0.76% (153/15,839), and 0.07% (10/12,745), respectively. The self-reported rates were as follows: HBV, 63.4% (26/41); HCV, 50.4% (62/123); HIV, 87.5% (7/8). Differences in sex were statistically significant for all infectious diseases; age significantly affected HBV and HCV rates. There was no association between the odds ratio of oral disease and viral infections. The cost per positive result was $1873.8, $905.8, and $11,895.3 for HBV, HCV, and HIV, respectively. Although self-assessment using questionnaires is partially effective, it has inadequate screening accuracy. Formulating an auxiliary diagnosis of infectious diseases with oral diseases was challenging. The cost determined was useful for hepatitis, but not HIV. Keywords: hepatitis B; hepatitis C; human immunodeficiency virus; pre-operative examination 1. Introduction In 2011, 1.12–1.27 million people were estimated to have persistent hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and 980,000 to 1.58 million people with persistent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in Japan [1]. The number of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients has also been increasing [2]. In recent years, testing for the hepatitis virus and HIV has become common in medical institutions as a pre-operative screening test for medical safety. Patients with needlestick injuries are always at risk of being infected with HBV, HCV, or HIV, especially during oral and maxillofacial surgery, where sharp appliances, such as arch bars and ligature wires or osteosynthesis plate and screws [3–5], are often used. In addition, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, who often contact the patient’s blood and saliva, may be exposed to pathogenic microorganisms, such as HIV and the hepatitis virus. Many Healthcare 2022, 10, 1348. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10071348 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/healthcare