This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Kevin M. Miller, MD; Leonard Apt, MD

Arch Ophthalmol. 1993;111(2):186-193.

Abstract
• Objectives.
—To determine the rate of perforation of surgical gloves after ophthalmic surgery and to identify factors that contribute to the development of perforations.

Design.
—Case-control study of used and unused surgical gloves collected during a 7-month period.

Setting.
—The ophthalmology surgical suites of a major teaching hospital.

Main Outcome Measures.

—Development of glove perforations as measured by five different techniques.

Results.
—We tested 103 pairs of latex surgical gloves before use and 454 pairs of gloves after use. Of five techniques used to test for pinholes, air inflation with water submersion and compression was found to be the most sensitive, yielding a 6.80% prevalence in control glove pairs and a 21.81% prevalence in study glove pairs (P=.0005). When examined by subspecialty area, the lowest perforation rate (11.39%; P=.00009) occurred in cataract and intraocular lens surgery and the highest rate (41.67%; P=.003) occurred in oculoplastic surgery. Factors that correlated significantly with the development of perforations as determined by multiple logistic regression analysis included pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus surgeries, oculoplastic surgeries, level of training of the surgeon, duration of operation, and larger glove size. The thumb and index fingers of the nondominant hand contained the largest numbers of pinholes.

Conclusions.
—The rate of surgical glove perforation after ophthalmic surgery is relatively high. Recommendations for reducing the rate of glove perforation are discussed.

Author Affiliations
From the Jules Stein Eye Institute, Los Angeles, Calif, and the Department of Ophthalmology, UCLA School of Medicine.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication December 10, 1992.

Presented in part at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Sarasota, Fla, May 3, 1992, and at the annual meeting of the American Ophthalmological Society, Hot Springs, Va, May 18, 1992.

Reprint requests to Jules Stein Eye Institute, 100 Stein Plaza, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 900247002 (Dr Miller).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Can antiseptic scrubs between cataract surgeries reduce bacterial load on surgical gloves to safe levels?
Nirmalan et al.
Br J Ophthalmol 2004;88:438-439.
FULL TEXT