[Public health measures in endoscopy--routine maintenance of endoscopes]

Flexible endoscopes that have not been properly serviced, cleaned and disinfected, are major infection risks in endoscopy. There are numerous references to this fact in literature. Manual and fully automatic servicing, cleaning and disinfecting flexible endoscopes are described and assessed in respect of patient and staff protection. The district physician (known as "Amtsarzt" = officially appointed doctor within the german Health Care and Health Insurance system) can discover hygienic deficits in endoscope maintenance when inspecting the hospitals in his district; the present article helps him to discover such deficits. The recommendations in this article are based on the guidelines issued by the Federal German Health Bureau dealing with hospital hygiene and how to prevent infections.