Suárez CE, Rabaza PA, Díaz AG

Language: Spanish
References: 17
Page: 31-38
PDF size: 60.27 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Introduction. Industries have increased the production of chemical disinfectants while making them more sophisticated, expensive and toxic. On the other hand, expendable materials and temperature sensitive items have also been manufactured. The new fashion is to return to the previous concept of physical disinfection using heat based on several methods through new technological ways in order to avoid high costs. Objective. Determine the antimicrobial efficiency of the vapor flow disinfection method at low temperatures (73°C for 10 minutes and 60°C for 30 minutes) for certain temperature sensitive materials of semicritical hospital use. Material and methods. For each sample object, 30 bioassays were conducted using a “before and after” design, in relation to contamination with reference microbial strains and normal flora from hospitalized patients. Three successive replicas for each object and contamination types with the variants were carried out: using Kraft wrapping paper (V1), mixed wrapping using paper and plastic (V2), no wrapping (naked) (V3), in addition to the control object. The tests were conducted for each experiment after the processes were stabilized, following a previous pilot study that would determine the definite work scheme of the equipment. Results. For the 18 objects assayed using the three wrapping variants, contaminated with several bacterial strains, the results concerning microbial activity using the VFBT method were absolutely in favor, finding no bacterial growth. With respect to the characteristics of the before and after VFBT process, in all cases no changes were observed in color, flexibility, hardness or integrity with respect to the object’s configuration. In relation to cost, the VFBT method is less expensive than chemical disinfectants. Discussion. The relative efficiency concerning costs, time employed and material damage favored the method proposed, applicable to all the autoclaves of the same type, with previous technological improvement developed especially for these purposes.

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