Surgical sponge cloth with indicator opaque to radiation - embedded in long flexible handle cord attached to cloth

摘要

A medical sponge cloth comprises a pad or sheet of absorbent material, used for mopping up physcological fluid in or adjacent to a surgical incision. The cloth has a manipulating and retrieving handle in the form of a cord attached to the cloth. The handle now contains an indicator for practically, the whole of its length. The indicator is much more opaque to radiation than the cloth material and sufficiently opaque to be easily distinguished from body tissues during scanning. The handle is lond and flexible so that it readily adopts an irregular path, making the indicator present a profile in two dimensions when viewed in any plane. The handle is pref. a loop with its two ends secured to the cloth. The indicator material, is e.g. barium sulphate extruded in a thermoplastic elastomer. The flexibility of the indicator ensures that it adopts a sinudus path easy to identify in radiation scanning. The indicator is protected inside the handle material which also prevents pieces of indicator parting company with the cloth.