A practical technique for disinfecting electrical stimulation apparatuses used in wound treatment

Electrical stimulation (ES) is used in wound management. Concerns, however, have been raised about the possible role ES might play in promoting or exacerbating wound infections, especially bacterial infections. The purpose of this study was to address these concerns by evaluating the efficacy of a method for disinfecting ES electrodes used in wound treatment.

Samples were taken from each wound treated in this study prior to and after ES and from sponges used with the ES electrodes prior to treatment, after treatment, and after 20 minutes of chemical disinfection. The presence and types of bacteria recovered were determined through standard microbiological techniques.

In this study of 25 patient samples, large numbers (ie, thousands) of bacteria were recovered from the pretreatment and posttreatment wound samples and from the posttreatment sponges. Following disinfection, however, bacteria were absent from the sponges in 23 of the 25 patient samples. In the remaining 2 samples, no more than two bacterial colonies were recovered after disinfection.

Immersion of the electrodes and sponges for 20 minutes in the disinfectant resulted in reduction of bacteria to safe, noninfective levels. Disinfection either completely eliminated all bacteria from the sponges (in 92% of the samples) or eliminated nearly all bacteria (in the remaining 8% of the samples), compared with predisinfection samples, which contained very large numbers of bacteria. These results demonstrate that the disinfection method used in this study is efficacious, and it appears to be cost-effective, practical, and safe for clinical use.