Four cleaning methods for tube-type medical equipments: a comparative study.

OBJECTIVE To compare the cleaning quality of four methods for cleaning tube-type medical equipments.METHODS Four cleaning methods were common method(group A),common ultrasonic method(group B),moisturizing ultrasonic method(group C),and washing ultrasonic method(group D).We randomly selected 218 pieces of tube-type medical equipments for each group.Then we used seven indices,such as visualmed,5× magnifying glass,white gauze,cotton swabs,occult blood test,colony count and endotoxin detection,to check the pass rates of these four cleaning methods.RESULTS The respective pass rates of groups A,B,C,and D: in visual method were 47.7%,55.0%,97.2%,and 99.1%;in 5× magnifying glass were 35.8%,44.0%,94.5%,and 95.4%;in white gauze were 33.0%,41.3%,93.6 %,and 96.3%;in cotton swabs were 30.7%,41.3%,92.7%,and 91.7%;in occult blood test were 56.7%,70.0%,95.0%,and 96.7%;in coloy count were 43.3%,76.7%,and 100.0%,100.0% and in endotoxin detection were 33.3%,86.7%,100.0%,and 100.0%,respectively.CONCLUSIONS Group D has a higher cleaning quality than other three groups.This method can remove the dirt in tube-type medical equipments more effectively and operatively.