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Most tourniquets used on patients are contaminated with bacteria

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Study findings suggest that most tourniquets used in health care are contaminated with bacteria, placing patients at risk for infection, according to research presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

“In our eyes the reusable tourniquets often used in our hospitals in Portugal and in other countries could be the potentiator vehicles responsible for the microorganism’s transmission,” Nádia Osório, PhD, associate professor in the department of biomedical laboratory sciences at the College of Health Technology of Coimbra, told Infectious Disease News. “So, we went to carry out this research and try to map what existed on the subject of contamination of tourniquets.”

Osório and colleagues performed a scoping review, analyzing published and unpublished articles written in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese and published through December 2017.

In total, 20 clinical studies were included in the review, with a total of 1,479 sampled tourniquets. According to the review, 15 studies showed a rate of contamination higher than 70% of the tourniquets sampled. Overall among the the studies, researchers found that contamination rates varied between 10% and 100%, with coagulase-negative staphylococci being the most prevalent microorganism, found on 441 tourniquets.

Studies showed that more than 70% of tourniquets may be contaminated with pathogens, including E. coli . Source: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

According to the researchers, the studies also reported the presence of gram-negative bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Klebsiella species Pseudomonas species, Acinetobacter baumannii and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia.

“We were expecting contamination, but associating antibiotic-resistant microorganisms makes the result become more worrisome. Health care infections continue to be a worldwide problem and medical devices such as these, used in many patients for invasive procedures, may be responsible for some infections and prolongations of patients in hospitals,” Osório concluded.

“Health care providers such as nurses [and] phlebotomists should pay attention to the asepsis care associated with these medical devices, or if possible, think about the use of disposable tourniquets.” – by Caitlyn Stulpin

Reference:

Oliveira V, et al. Abstract 1044. Presented at: European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases; April 13-16, 2019; Amsterdam.

Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.