Scientific paper
How often does glove perforation occur in surgery? comparison between single gloves and a double-gloving system

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Abstract

Background: In surgery, intact gloves protect the surgeon from bloodborne pathogens and the surgical wound from microorganisms on the skin of the surgeon. However, glove perforation is very common, and puncture rates as high as 61% are published in the literature. One objective of this study was to compare puncture rates between a unique double-gloving puncture indication system and single-use gloves, and another was to determine the extent to which glove perforations remain undetected during surgery.

Methods: The study material comprised all gloves used in surgical operations at our hospital for a period of 2 months. The analysis was made by the glove type in a prospective and randomized manner. Gloves were tested immediately after the surgical procedure using the approved standardized water-leak method for 2 minutes to detect any holes. The gloves used in this study were either a double-gloving puncture indication system or the standard glove used at our hospital.

Results: In 885 operations altogether, 2,462 gloves were tested; 1,020 single gloves, 1,148 double-glove systems, and 294 combination gloves were studied. The overall perforation rate was 192 out of 2,462 gloves (7.80%), and 162 out of 885 operations (18.3%). The detection of perforation during surgery was 28 out of 76 (36.84%) with single gloves, 77 out of 89 with the double-gloving system (86.52%), and 9 out of 27 with combination gloves (33.33%; P <0.001). The inner glove of the double-gloving system was punctured in 6 out of 88 outer glove perforations (6.82%).

Conclusions: In view of the critical importance of safety at work by having a sterile barrier between surgeon and patient, it is very important to use a double-gloving puncture indication system, at least in operations where there is a high risk of glove perforation.

Section snippets

Methods

The study material comprised all gloves used by the surgeons in surgical operations at Satakunta Central Hospital for a period of 2 months, September and October 1999. Before the study period, the surgeons were able to test the double-gloving system for a period of 2 weeks. The investigation was open and prospective. The randomization was made according to the year of the birth of the patient: patients born in even years were operated on with double-gloving and those born in uneven years were

Results

Altogether 885 surgical operations were included in this study. Most of the operations were in the field of orthopedics and traumatology and gastrointestinal surgery (Table 1). Glove perforations were observed in 162 operations out of 885 procedures (18.3%). The assistant surgeon took part in the operation 284 times. The assistant surgeon had glove perforations in 22 out of 284 operations (7.7%), and the surgeon had glove perforations in 67 out of 284 operations (23.6%). Altogether 2,462

Comments

Glove perforation is a very common event during surgery as our study showed. The same results have been shown in other studies as well. Our frequency of perforations was 18.3% of operations. In the literature the frequencies have varied from 22% to 61% during various types of surgical procedures [2], [3], [7]. The highest frequencies have been reported in orthopedics, traumatology, and thoracic surgery, because in those fields the surgeon faces sharp fractured bones or bony structures in the

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from Regent Medical, London, UK.

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