EVALUATION OF BACTERIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATI ON OF GASTROINTESTINAL AND PULMONARY ENDOSCOPES AFTER CLEANING AND DISINFECTION PROCEDURES

The increasing number of endoscopic interventions as well as the risk of patient to patient transfer of microorganisms contributed to put ma intenance procedures of endoscopic instruments forward. The authors ev aluated the quality of the procedures applied in their hospital during 2 years.: a manuel and a automated disinfection with Olympus ETD. 14 bronchoscopes, 20 coloscopes and 22 gastroscopes were studied. The int ernal channels were sampled by injecting a mixture inhibiting of the g lutaraldehyde effect containing also a surfactant. They were shown to be more contaminated than the other sampled sites (moving extremity pa rt, valves). The operator channel was shown to be more often contamina ted in case of coloscopes in comparison with the results for the gastr oscopes and bronchoscopes; however the contamination was lower after a n automated maintenance instead of a manual maintenance (p = 0.05). Co ncerning storage, a period superior to 12 hours was shown to increase the level of contamination of the operator channel, and it was all the more contaminated since the drying was not well performed.