Future research requires longer follow up to assess antibiotic resistance as well as greater validity/generalizability to provide definitive answers on the effectiveness of decontamination and effects on antibiotic resistance.
Determine the effectiveness of decontamination, and perform thorough dry or wet decontamination, depending on the circumstances.
It is also worth mentioning that the only one environmental RPKP isolate was identified from a decontaminated empty bed, which obliged us to enhance the effectiveness of decontamination procedures in our hospital.
In the first project (SER COST project C07.0110 "Evaluation on the effectiveness of decontamination methods for wooden art objects treated with wood preservatives"), dummies of oak wood were soaked with a mixture of the pesticides pentachlorophenol, lindane und DDT and the distribution of the pesticides in the wood structure was determined by GC/MS, neutron radiography and μ-XRF.
However, little is known about the effectiveness of decontamination at preventing human disease.
Also, it is uncertain whether frequent surveillance cultures are needed to monitor the effectiveness of decontamination.
Cleaning before sterilisation is of the utmost importance in the effectiveness of decontamination procedures in reducing the risk of transmission of prions.
Our data suggest that culturing rinse samples from BCs can better indicate the effectiveness of decontamination of GI endoscopes after HLD than culturing swab samples from AERs, which can only indicate whether AERs are free from microbial contamination.
This work stresses the effectiveness of decontamination and, above all, provides information about the required frequency of disinfection procedures to achieve a statistically significant decrease in total bacterial load.
In this study, we aimed to assess the effectiveness of decontamination using reprocessors after HLD by comparing the cultured samples obtained from biopsy channels (BCs) of GI endoscopes and the internal surfaces of AERs.
