Gas plasma sterilization is new to the healthcare field. The first such sterilizer has been manufactured by Advanced Sterilization Products (J&J, Irvine, CA). The system uses hydrogen peroxide as the substrate gas and radio frequency emissions to generate plasma. This system is a low-temperature, quick-acting process with no toxic residues. It appears that this sterilizer system holds promise in the healthcare field and could help to reduce the use of ethylene oxide.
Arterial catheters are now commonly used to monitor blood pressure and obtain blood samples for arterial blood gas and other laboratory determinations. Stopcocks inserted into the pressure monitoring circuit have been the primary means of obtaining blood from arterial catheters. However, these stopcock systems have been associated with nosocomial contamination and bacteremias. Because of the problems of bacterial contamination and blood wasting with the stopcock sampling systems, we compared the frequency and extent of contamination of external sampling ports and the monitoring tubing fluid in stopcocks with that of a novel closed needle-sampling system (Lab-Site, Migada Ltd, Rehovot, Israel), incorporated into pressure monitoring tubing (Abbott Laboratories Inc., North Chicago, Illinois). We found that use of the novel sampling system resulted in significantly fewer episodes of internal bacterial contamination of the arterial monitoring line (7%) than did the use of a stopcock system (61%). External contamination of the sampling port was also lower in the novel system (8%) than in the stopcock system (37%). This suggests that the closed system may reduce the risk of nosocomial infections in patients requiring arterial pressure monitoring.
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