ARE SAFETY NEEDLES SAFER THAN TRADITIONAL NEEDLES?

摘要

Wolf et al recently investigated the benefits of safety needle use in allergy practices. In view of their recommendation to question and possibly revise the Occupational and Safety Health Administration guidelines, their study requires some scrutiny.With this retrospective e-mail survey, the authors conclude that there is an approximately 2-fold increase in accidental needle stick (ANS) injuries with safety needles compared with traditional needles. Although they acknowledge that there may be limitations with a retrospective e-mail survey study design, they do not discuss a number of significant biases. These limitations and biases (also present in the previous similar study by Kanter et al2) are numerous and significant enough to make the data almost impossible to interpret