Epidemology of glove perforation in orthopaedic surgeries

Introduction: Surgical glove perforation is one of cause for percutaneous transfer of disease. Among many HIV HBV & HCV are deadliest diseases. Among the other surgical specialities, orthopaedics has the highest rate of glove perforation. Hence this study was conducted to study the incidence of glove perforation & their pattern in our institute. Materials and Methods: all the gloves (1444) collected from 286 operations which occurred during 3months period were tested, out of which 172 were major procedures and 114 were minor procedures. During the procedure, if any perforation was detected to naked eye examination then they were labelled as perforated. And rest the gloves were tested as per American society for testing and material standard (ASTM d5151 - 06) guidelines for any perforations. Results: In our prospective study, perforation occurred in 74(26%) surgeries. Total of 173(12%) gloves were perforated, 51(17.83%) from major & 23(8.04%) from minor procedures, the primary surgeon was most commonly involved (68%). Only 53(30.6%) glove perforation was detected during the procedure. Among the double glove users, inner glove perforation was seen in only 5% of cases. The most common fingers involved was left index (38%), then right index finger (28%) followed by left thumb (20%) and right thumb was (14%).the primary surgeon was most commonly involved (68%). The mean duration of the surgery in which perforation was noticed was 76+6minutes. Conclusion: Double glove practice is better than the use of the single glove. Gloves have to be changed regularly in prolonged procedures. Keywords: Glove perforation, Orthopaedic surgeries, Double glove.