Equipment must be cleaned before sterilization. Heat fixes blood fibrin to instrument surfaces, and should not be used prior to cleaning. Reprocessing should be done according to evidence based scientific recommendations.
Thoughts on options for skin cleaning prior to body art procedures.
If a product is not labeled for surgical preparation, it really doesn’t matter how good of a hand and body soap or cleanser it is. It would only be a really strong hand wash product, or possibly aftercare for our purposes.
Choose a product that has claims as a “surgical skin preparation” because “scrub” alone is only the first step as cleaning. A two step “scrub then paint” process is appropriate and advised by CDC. That involves a solvent or detergent scrub to clean followed by the surgical antiseptic to kill microbes to an irreducible minimum level of contamination.
What does the evidence suggest that we use?
I’ve been using FDA approved skin prep PVP-I, CHG or alcoholic CHG, or alcohol depending on the area, with a preference for sterile products, and keep looking for other safe, appropriate options.
For oral preparation, an antiseptic mouthwash containing CPC or dilute H2O2 and friction.
I’m still looking for a universal surgical preparation agent, and have not found anything on the market that is both proven and FDA approved other than PVP-I, CHG based products and alcohol. I don’t want to recommend anything unless it is tested and labeled for the purpose.
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act In the States, medical devices are regulated by the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Then called the Food and Drug Act, it was the first piece of legislation to result from investigative journalism, namely a novel titled “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair described the filthy conditions of pre-WWI Chicago stockyards … Read more