How often should the breathing tubes be sterilized and how is it best done?
A. The ideal would be to have clean tubes for every patient – uncleaned the tubes breed bacteria and fungi such that they can go green and visibly discolour. Keeping the ADE tubes is particularly easy so that there is no reason why they should not be cleaned on a daily basis. The tubing of the ADE system is different as it is not corrugated tubing. It is smooth inside with an outer ribbing for support and strength. Being smooth bore the chemicals do not accumulate in the corrugations so it is easy to put the whole tubing set in a standard sterilizing solution for the recommended time for that solution and then simply rinse them out. It is best to leave all the connections on the tubing during sterilization as constant removal stretches the tubes which then fall off easily. Hanging the tubes vertically on the “Y” connector will drain any excess water.
