Presence of protein deposits on ‘cleaned’ re‐usable anaesthetic equipment apparatus

• Published in: Anaesthesia Vol. 56; no. 11; pp. 1069 - 1072
• Main Authors: Miller, D. M., Youkhana, I., Karunaratne, W. U., Pearce, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.11.2001
• ISSN: 0003-2409; 1365-2044
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2001.02277.x

Twenty previously used and supposedly clean, sterilised laryngeal mask airways, five bougies and five Magill forceps from the operating theatre, and 61 laryngoscope blades from different sites within a single hospital were randomly collected and stained with erythrosin B dye, which stains proteins if present on surfaces. All 20 laryngeal mask airways had been used before and were stained: four (20%) showed heavy staining, five (25%) moderate staining and 11 (55%) mild staining. Two unused laryngeal mask airways used as controls were without staining. Thirty‐four of 44 (77%) laryngoscope blades taken from the operating theatres, six of seven (86%) from the overnight intensive recovery room and all 10 (100%) from the wards were stained. None of the other items was totally clean. These findings suggest that current cleaning methods do not remove all proteinaceous material.