Abstract
Prion diseases present unique challenges to healthcare facilities, both in the care and treatment of patients. A significant cause for concern is in the routine reprocessing of medical devices used on patients and how disease transmission can be prevented on the reuse of devices. Investigations have shown that prion disease can be transmitted on medical devices, which can be a concern given the long incubation times associated with these diseases and that guidelines to control transmission only really apply in a small number of known or at risk cases. It is only recently that medical device-associated cleaning, disinfection and sterilization technologies have been investigated and the results of these studies are summarized in this report. The evidence would suggest that many simple decontamination steps can be applied to dramatically reduce the risks to patients, but the research has also given some surprises. Overall, it is reasonable to expect that standard precautions will be able to be applied both today as well as in the future to reduce the risk of prion disease transmission as well as the many other human pathogen concerns, although this may mean changes in some of our practices.
References
Feb 26, 1977·Lancet·C BernoulliC J Gibbs
Nov 1, 1986·Annals of Internal Medicine·J E Conte
Jan 9, 1999·Clinical Microbiology Reviews·G McDonnell, A D Russell
Dec 8, 2000·ASAIO Journal : a Peer-reviewed Journal of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs·K AntlogaG E McDonnell
Apr 2, 2002·Contributions to Microbiology·D M Taylor
Aug 16, 2002·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·C WeissmannE Flechsig
Apr 26, 2003·Clinical Infectious Diseases : an Official Publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America·Gerald McDonnell, Peter Burke
Jan 30, 2004·Journal of Virology·Richard E Race, Gregory J Raymond
Apr 28, 2004·Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology : the Official Journal of the Society of Hospital Epidemiologists of America·Zheng-Xin YanKlaus Roth
Jun 9, 2004·The Journal of Hospital Infection·G KampfH Martiny
Aug 11, 2004·Lancet·Guillaume FichetJean-Philippe Deslys
Jul 22, 2005·The Journal of General Virology·H C BaxterR L Baxter
Aug 17, 2006·Clinical Infectious Diseases : an Official Publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America·J Mark SuttonNeil D H Raven
Sep 23, 2006·Science·Melanie Meyer-LuehmannMathias Jucker
Oct 19, 2007·The Journal of Hospital Infection·G FichetG McDonnell