Evaluation of the microbicidal efficacy of Steris System 1 for digestive endoscopes using GERMANDE and ASTM validation protocols

Contaminated flexible endoscopes: Review of impact of channel sampling methods on culture results and recommendations for root-cause analysis

“…However, Thornhill et al 22 indicated that recovery of injured microorganisms was important, and they summarized how microbes in flexible endoscopes are damaged: "Bacteria residing in an endoscope are frequently exposed to harsh conditions such as disinfectants, nutrient starvation, desiccation and high hydrostatic pressure resulting in injury and stress that makes successful recovery difficult." Several other published studies support the value of neutralizers (eg, NPD-thiosulfate, Letheen or Dey-Engley broth) to inactivate traces of residual HLD 60 and stimulated resuscitation of damaged microbes (eg, viable but nonculturable organisms) to grow on culture. [61][62][63][64][65] Furthermore, Da la Costa et al 66 demonstrated the ability of NPD-thiosulfate neutralizer to protect P. aeruginosa from low-level residuals (ie, 1:10 dilution) of glutaraldehyde, accelerated hydrogen peroxide, and orthopthalaldehyde.…”

Instruments and Maintenance

“…At the end of the sterilisation cycle it is necessary to remove the processed instruments and accessories using an aseptic technique. It is not possible to treat more than one endoscopic instrument at one time with this system, and sterilisation is only guaranteed at that moment, so the instruments must be used immediately [19,20].…”

Impact of synthetic detergent on sporicidal activity in pharmaceutical facility

“…(12) Acceptance criteria were chosen to be 3 log reductions for vegetative microorganisms while for spores must not be less than 2 log reduction for successful disinfection. (13) Significant difference in microbial count compared to the initial result, i.e., greater than a 0.3-0.5 log variation, which is defined as normal plating variability (Duc et al, 2001) was chosen as true criteria of biocidal effect. Plasmid Profile Analysis (Sambrook et al, 1989;Zhou et al, 2008) This test was done to determine if the cause of great variability in tolerance to the used disinfectants is plasmidrelated or not among Bacillus isolates.…”

“…Similar to H 2 O 2 , peroxyacetic acid probably denatures proteins and enzymes and increases cell wall permeability by disrupting sulfhydryl (-SH) and sulfur (S-S) bonds (Baldry and Fraser, 1988;Block, 1991). The sterilant, 3.5% peroxyacetic acid when diluted to 0.2% with filtered water at 50 º C had demonstrated excellent microbicidal activity (Tucker et al, 1996;Bradley et al, 1995;Duc et al, 2001).…”