To wash or not to wash

19Mrt08

New trends are arriving in urology concerning washing and disinfecting instruments. For some reason hospitals are adapting the process they use for semi-rigid scope for flexible scopes. Hospitals like to wash the scope automatic and then sterilize it in a plasma machine. However, this is just a trend and not everybody is following this trend. At this moment almost each country has its own rules for washing and disinfecting. This is giving big problems to the manufacturers of scopes. They are trying to make protocols, but with so many trends, it is very hard to chase them all. Then the question rises: how clean, disinfected and sterile will the flexible scope be after the washing process? Because of the rather small lumen of flexible ureteroscopes it is very hard to proper clean them. So basically there still is a risk of decontamination of the scope, even though it was washed properly. In the Netherlands organisations within the hospitals are talking about the possibilities to get a uniform protocol to wash flexibles. In my opinion, there is still a very long road ahead of us. Hopefully soon there will be a way to properly wash, disinfect and sterilize the scope, without damaging the scope on a short notice.  To be continued… 

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Tags: disinfecting, DUR-D, flexibles, Gyrus ACMI, Johnson&Johnson, Olympus, sterilization, Steris, Sterrad, Storz, washing