Flexible Nasopharyngeal Fiberscope Cleaning and Sterilization

To compare conventional and automatic flexible nasopharyngeal fiberscope (NFS) sterilizer effectiveness and required time, we studied the NFS handle and tip before and after sterilization in clinical use in 9 cases each. Two bacterial strains were infused into 6 NFS channels then washed them with each method, recording all required cleaning and sterilization time and steps. Automatic sterilization yielded no bacteria on the NFS handle, tip, or channnel of the scope in any case. Conventional sterilization yielded bacteria on the handle in 5 of 9 cases, although none on the channel or tip. Average automatic sterilization took 12 minutes 43 seconds, significantly shorter than the conventional 23 minutes 7 seconds. We found automatic sterilization to be more bactericidaliy effective and efficacious than conventional sterilization.