Bacterial contamination of needles used for spinal and epidural anaesthesia

We have investigated prospectively the incidence of bacterial contamination of 114 spinal and 20 epidural needles collected immediately after lumbar p uncture of the subarachnoid or epidural space. Bacteriological examination revealed bacterial contamination of 24 (17.9%) of the needles, mainly coagu lase-negative staphylococci (21; 15.7%) followed by yeasts (2; 1.5%), enter ococcus (1; 0.8%), pneumococcus (1; 0.8%) and micrococcus (1; 0.8%). Our re sults suggest that even during aseptic puncture for lumbar anaesthesia, the re is a significant rate of needle contamination.