Methods in our country that are used for decontamination of laryngoscopes and their rates of preference

Certain processes are required to be conducted in order to prevent cross infection in devices which are used more than once for diagnosis and treatment purposes.Exterminating vegetative and spore forms of all microorganisms of any substance is called sterilization (13). Disinfection is the process of eliminating most of the pathogenic microorganisms from non-viable objects except for bacteria spores. It is mostly performed with liquid chemicals or by pasteurization.Disinfectant substances should not be used randomly since unnecessary disinfectant use has adverse aspects such as selecting resistant nosocomial infections and causing plagues as colonies in hospital environment, economic losses and environment pollution.Disinfectants are divided into 3 groups as high-level, medium-level and low-level disinfectants:Semi-critical devices contact mucous membrane; however, they do not penetrate the body. All microorganisms, except for bacteria spores, are intended to be eliminated during the disinfection of such devices. Laryngoscopes should be cleaned after all of their components are disassembled, and blades should be disinfected at high level before using them.Universal Precautions Concept suggests applying decontamination procedures for each patient in the same manner because of the fact that each patient bears potential risk against pathogens to be infected via blood.The purpose of our study is to determine the methods preferred for laryngoscope decontamination and their usage rates in various hospitals all around our country. The survey results obtained by talking face-to-face with anesthesia physicians working at 180 different hospitals in Turkey are evaluated below:When the preferred methods are taken into consideration, it has been determined that 65% of them prefers high-level disinfectant substance and mostly uses glutaraldehyde.When the results of the survey are analyzed, a portion amounting to approximately 56% that have reported their disinfection duration under 20 minutes could not manage to meet the high-level disinfection standard.Contaminated rigid laryngoscopes cause P.aeroginosa. For this reason, insufficient decontamination poses a great risk for public health.Laryngoscopes need high-level disinfection/sterilization after each usage. Washing, cleaning, high-level disinfection processes should be applied and devices should be dried necessarily. Thus, microbial spread can be prevented.