Are surgical scrubbing and pre-operative disinfection of the skin in orthopaedic surgery reliable?
This study attempts to establish the actual effectiveness of pre-surgical disinfection of the patient and surgeon’s hands. We evaluated bacterial density and composition on the skin of 15 patients undergoing knee arthroscopy and the left hand of two surgeons after standard disinfection with povidone-iodine. Three samples were taken after the first 6-min scrub in the first surgical operation from the periungual space of the 1 degrees finger, from the interdigital space between the 2 degrees and 3 degrees fingers and from the transverse palmar crest of the left hand of two surgeons for seven consecutive surgical sessions, for a total of 42 samples, and two samples from the pre-patellar skin and from the popliteal skin of 15 patients undergoing knee arthroscopy, for a total of 30 samples. Pre-surgical handwashing and disinfection procedures were identical in each case. Pre-surgical disinfection of the patient’s skin with povidone-iodine was shown to be completely effective, with 100% of s
