Levels of naturally occurring microorganisms on surgical instruments after clinical use and after washing

摘要

Surgical instruments exposed to sterile body sites should be contaminated with relatively low levels of microbial contamination or bioburden; howev- er, few studies in the literature have determined the quantitative level and types of contamination. A study was conducted at 2 clinical sites to deter- mine the level of microbial contamination of surgical instruments after clinical sue and after washing. Quantitative assays showed that bioburden lev- els were in the range of 0 to 4415 colony forming units per instrument after clinical use, and 88 /100 of the instruments had bioburden levels lower than 1000.