Operating room disinfection: operator-driven ultraviolet 'C' vs. chemical treatment

In operating room (OR) surfaces, Nosocomial pathogens can persist on inanimate surfaces for long intervals and are highly resistant to traditional surface cleaning.

This study compares traditional chemical operating room terminal disinfection to a unique operator-driven device that emits germicidal UV light at short distance onto vertical and horizontal surfaces.

A randomized crossover analogous protocol assigned 40 end-of-day operating rooms into either group A (chemical then UVC treatments) or group B (UVC then chemical treatments). Initial Staphylococcal cultures were obtained prior to disinfection treatment, after the first treatment, and after the second treatment at 16 most commonly contaminated sites to represent overall room contamination. Success was defined as no growth and failure as 1 or more colony forming units. Thoroughness of chemical treatment vs UVC treatment was compared and used to determine if the second treatment was additive to the first treatment within each group.

The operator driven UVC device outperformed chemical treatment in reducing the number of contaminated sites in the OR by more than half (P<0.001). Operator-driven UVC reduced contaminated sites after chemical treatment by nearly half (P<0.001). In contrast, chemical treatment after operator-driven UVC did not significantly reduce the number of contaminated sites. The mean employee time of disinfection for chemical treatment was 49 minutes and for the operator-driven UVC emitter 7.9 minutes (P<0.001).

This study demonstrates that addition of an operator-driven UVC emitter to OR rooms between cases could be helpful in overall decreasing the number of contaminated sites.