School of Medicine Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-6-2025
Abstract
Introduction: Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) may result from pathogen-to-patient transmission within the environment. High-touch surfaces (HTS) areas near the operative field from previous studies had been identified as the least likely to be thoroughly cleaned between operative cases and were utilized for this study. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a handheld ultraviolet-c (UV-C) lightemitting diode (LED) disinfection device on the decontamination of HTS in the operating room.
Methods: This prospective study was conducted between 03/02/2021 and 04/20/2021. Tryptic soy agar contact plates were used to determine the bacterial load of the selected surfaces before the initiation of the case, after the case was complete, before manual cleaning, and after disinfection of the LED device. The plates were then incubated for 48 hours at 36º þ/–1° C. Colony forming units (CFU) were recorded 48 hours after incubation. Mean, median, and range of CFU were recorded.
Results: Average CFU per surface before and after the surgical case were 14.1 (range 0–200) and 13.5 (range 0–200) respectively, these were not significantly different (P = 0.9397). Manual cleaning reduced average CFU by 74% to 3.35 (range 0–200) per surface (P = 0.0162). Disinfection with the handheld LED unit further reduced the average CFU by 92% to 0.28 (range 0–4) per surface (P < 0.0001).
Conclusions: A handheld UV-C LED disinfection device may decrease environmental contamination near the operative field in HTS areas. Further research is warranted with this technology to determine if this correlates with a decrease in PJI.
Recommended Citation
Turner, R. A., Johnson, R. M., Yazdani-Farsad, Y., Owens, J., Dennis, D. A., & Jennings, J. M. (2024). A handheld UV-C light-emitting diode decreases environmental contamination near the operative field. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 4(1), e228.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology
DOI
10.1017/ash.2024.409
Academic Level
medical student
Comments
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.