 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Medical Forum / General / Laboratory / June 2004How to get needles tested after needle sticks.
Exactly where would doctors send a needle for testing for infectious organisms after a needle stick in cases where the testing could make a difference for doctors and their patients?... What is being asked is not about protocol. What is being asked is about where the testing would be done in cases where the test results could make a difference to the doctors and their patients. It is one thing for doctors explaining that needles are not tested and would not know where to have a needle tested anyway compared with knowing where to send a needle for testing for infectious organisms and explaining that in the light of knowing where it would not be necessary. > Exactly where would doctors send a needle for testing for infectious organisms > after a needle stick in cases where the testing could make a difference for > doctors and their patients?... Why would they want to send the needle? You really don't care about the needle as much as the person it came from. If you know the person it came from then you test the patient. It is pointless in testing the needle. What if you have a dripping needle and you get stuck with it in which case most of the blood gets transfered to the pucture and none remains on the needle. Testing of the needle turns up negative for everything, what good is that? You cleaned the needle off. > What is being asked is not about protocol. What is being asked is > about where the testing would be done in cases where the test results [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > a needle for testing for infectious organisms and explaining that in the > light of knowing where it would not be necessary. Testing the needle will give useless false negative results. The relative risk of the needle increases with the bore size as the larger the blood transfer. Get a study in which HIV patients or hepatitis patients are stuck and the needles tested for those organisms. Do you really expect all of those to be positive and what good are the findings when they come back a week later? Rapid HIV testing is based on antibody presence not PCR. Thank you Robert ! Where can needles be tested !?... > Thank you Robert ! > > Where can needles be tested !?... Testing the needle is NOT part of any needlestick workup. Contact the CDC and look up info on needlestick protocols. For any needlestick workup you need to test the source patient's blood for presence of antibodies to Hepatitis B and C and HIV. The HIV ab test should be a rapid test so that anti-retroviral therapy can be decided on if positive and not started if negative. The "stuck" person is also tested for the same things to prove an antibody conversion - if they test negative and then a few weeks later test positive then the conversion can be traced to the needlestick.  SignatureJohn Gentile MS M(ASCP) yjgent@cox.net Laboratory Information, QA Manager VA Medical Center Providence, RI The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or VA. Thank you for the information John Gentile ! Where would needles be tested as a method of quality control in manufacturing and packaging needles to make sure that those needles would not end up with some infectious organisms?... The only way to make sure that manufactured and packaged needles would not be infected would be to test them. References http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=sci.med.laboratory http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=y443c4gr5x2.fsf%4 0nestle.csail.mit.edu&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dsci. med.laboratory > Thank you for the information John Gentile ! > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > The only way to make sure that manufactured and packaged needles would not be infected > would be to test them. The quality control departments of companies that produce sterile instruments and equipment. Sterility checks are performed to insure that all the bugs are killed as the last step in manufacturing. It may not involve testing the the needles themselves but adding a resistent bacteria in a vial along with the needles.and then trying to grow that bacteria, usually a spore forming bacteria of Clostridium. Spore formers are hard to kill so if it kills them then it can kill all other bacteria. If you want to play with it then you can send them to a commercial microbiology lab and not a medical one as they don't really care about that. Needles are used all the time in blood cultures and if they were to be contaminated then we would hear about it pretty quickly as contamination rates are recorded and followed closely from a qualilty performance in keeping the contamination rate down. I don't know what you are getting at? > References http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=sci.med.laboratory http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=y443c4gr5x2.fsf%4 0nestle.csail.mit.edu&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26grou p%3Dsci.med.laboratory Thank you Robert ! Please let me know of any particular laboratory should you happen upon the information... dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu It is the direct enquriy as expressed even though it appeared other replies have emphasized the broad clinical modalities. oo__ dWs dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu >It is the direct enquriy as expressed even though it appeared other >replies have emphasized the broad clinical modalities. Manufacturing QM/PI has nothing to do with post-exposure clinical specimen testing, which is what you asked about earlier. Other replies' emphasis on clinical issues directly addressed your stated question, "How to get needles tested after needle sticks." If your real question is how lab equipment is inspected prior to use, then you might want to restate the question under a new Subject line, which doesn't ask about "Needle sticks". @~ > Where would needles be tested as a method of quality control > in manufacturing and packaging needles to make sure that those > needles would not end up with some infectious organisms?... No. Needles are gamma irradiated after packaging. the chances of any stary bugs getting through that is somewhat remote, and even accepting that kind of miracle, one or two individual bugs would not be a viable infection risk. It's not a physical problem; it's an anxiety issue. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.