CHICAGO, US: Although manufacturers indicate that healing abutments (HAs) are single-use components, HAs are sometimes reused in clinical practice. Academic institutions being at the forefront of evidence-based dentistry, a study has looked into the prevalence of reuse of HAs across American periodontics residency programmes and their decontamination protocols, as concerns have arisen about their reuse owing to potential cross-contamination and the risk of initiating inflammatory responses in patients. The researchers found that, although only a small number of programmes reuse HAs, the lack of standardisation of decontamination practices could put patients at risk of exposure to biomaterials.