Using a Kastle-Meyer (KM) technique, the following equipment from the emergency departments of six UK hospitals (four trusts) and three regional ambulance services was tested for blood contamination: extrication ("spinal") boards, cervical collars, straps, box splints, head blocks, and headboards. Only equipment ready for patient use was tested. Over half of trauma equipment (57%) tested positi...

Introduction Total organic carbon (TOC) analysis provides a quick and efficient analytical process for cleaning validation in the pharmaceutical industry. When a single piece of equipment in a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility processes different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), cross-contamination between products must be kept to an absolute minimum. Cleaning validation is the ove...

In the July 2016 issue of Clinical Chemistry, Dr. Andrew Bryan and colleagues report on their investigation into the levels of blood-borne viral pathogen contamination of a total laboratory automation system. This article was accompanied by an editorial by Dr. Carey-Ann Burnham and Dr. Susan Butler-Wu. They joined us for this podcast. Carey-Ann Burnham is an Associate Professor of Pathology and...

Contamination routes of Listeria monocytogenes were examined in a chilled food processing plant that produced ready-to-eat and ready-to-reheat meals during an 8-year period by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis. A total of 319 L. monocytogenes isolates were recovered from raw materials (n = 18), the environment (n = 77), equipment (n = 193), and products (n = 31), and 18 dif...

Blood cultures are an important investigation to help tailor effective management for patients with severe sepsis. Frequent contaminated samples increase laboratory workload and can delay or cause incorrect changes to patient management. This can prolong patient hospitalisation, increase the risk of harm and increase cost to health boards. Current guidelines advocate a contamination rate of 2-3...

Many bacterial source tracking (BST) methods are too expensive for most communities to afford. In an effort to develop an inexpensive method of detecting human sources of fecal contamination in a freshwater creek during baseflow and stormflow conditions, we combined targeted sampling with fluorometry. Targeted sampling is a prelude to BST and finds sources of fecal contamination by continued sa...

contamination with radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine centers in addition to being a health concern requires time-consuming decontamination efforts. according to nrc (nuclear regulatory commission) contamination should be monitored in nuclear medicine centers where radiopharmaceuticals are prepared and administrated at the end of each working session; otherwise, contamination spread to ot...