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Copper use found beneficial
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One
of the most frustrating problems facing hospitals is how to prevent
health care-acquired infections. Exposure to organisms often found in
hospital environments, such as intensive care unit (ICU) rooms, can
result in additional illness and sometimes death for people who come
into contact with these “bugs”.
Recent clinical tests at MUSC, the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center,
and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City,
demonstrated that antimicrobial copper is effective in significantly
reducing the bacterial load in intensive care unit (ICU) patient rooms
and on many individual objects in those rooms.
Michael Schmidt, Ph.D., professor and vice chairman of the Department
of Microbiology and Immunology said, “It’s well known that
hospital-acquired infections have a high cost, both in terms of money
spent treating them and lives lost. One in 20 hospital patients will
develop a hospital-acquired infection; that number increases to 30
percent for patients in intensive care units.”
The ongoing U.S. Department of Defense-funded clinical trial is
assessing the ability of antimicrobial copper to reduce the amount of
bacteria on surfaces commonly found in hospital rooms. Early results
from the second phase of the study indicate that antimicrobial copper
may be the key to reducing these sometimes deadly infections. Copper
was effective in significantly reducing the total bacterial load in ICU
patient care rooms and on many individual objects within those rooms.
“The concentration of aerobic colony forming units on a hospital
surface that is commonly accepted as benign is less than 5 cfu/cm2,”
Schmidt said. “When the inherent microbial burden on objects exceeds
this level, it is likely that transmission increases among patients,
health care workers, visitors and the objects within the built hospital
environment. Surveillance studies have found the majority of the
common objects with which health care workers, patients and visitors
routinely interact carry a substantial microbial burden and thus
represent a clear and present danger to patients even in spite of the
best efforts to keep the objects clean.”
During the first phase of the study, investigators determined that the
most heavily contaminated objects are those closest to the patient,
such as bed rails, call buttons, and visitor chairs. Bacteria such as
Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA), and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) can survive for long
periods of time on contaminated surfaces, so it’s important to find
materials which make it more difficult for these bacteria to spread to
patients, visitors and health care workers. In the second phase of the
trial, copper bed rails, tray tables, chair arms, call buttons,
monitors and IV poles replaced their counterparts in ICU rooms of the
three participating hospitals.
Laboratory testing independent of the clinical trial has proven that
copper and copper alloys, such as brass and bronze, kill 99.9 percent
of bacteria within two hours when cleaned regularly and as a supplement
to routine cleaning and disinfection programs.
Schmidt said, “Initial analysis of data from our studies assessing the
consequences of introducing the copper into the built environment have
clearly shown that the antimicrobial properties of copper have
substantially, and consistently, kept the microbial burden associated
with commonly encountered objects to levels well below those considered
to represent a risk to patients. In fact, when considered as an
average, the concentration of the microbes found on the copper objects
sampled never exceeded levels deemed benign. We are now asking whether
or not such a substantial reduction in burden will translate into a
reduction in health care-acquired infections.”
Friday, April 16, 2010
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