Friday, June 19, 2009
Wear a mask when performing lumbar punctures!
An Ohio newspaper reports that two women developed meningitis recently due to Streptococcus salivarius after undergoing spinal anesthesia by the same anesthesiologist. It was noted that the anesthesiologist did not wear a mask during the procedures. One of the women died. Such cases have been increasingly recognized over the last several years, and occur when the saliva of a healthcare worker performing a lumbar puncture for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes contaminates the spinal needle which is in direct communication with the CSF. This can easily occur if the operator is talking when performing the procedure. For this reason, CDC specifically recommended that masks be worn during such procedures in its latest guideline on isolation precautions (p. 69 of this document).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
OSHA! OSHA! OSHA!
In many parts of the country, as rates of COVID-19 are declining and vaccination coverage is increasing (albeit with substantial variati...
-
Back on clinical service again and having more thoughts on poor hospital design. Last month I wondered why there were no stethoscope wipe... -
Those that follow me on twitter or the blog have probably noticed my recent focus on trying to understand the emergence of compulsory influe... -
REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha With the assistance of a great supply management team, we have been able to outfit all of our clinical staff wit...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for submitting your comment to the Controversies blog. To reduce spam, all comments will be reviewed by the blog moderator prior to publishing. However, all legitimate comments will be published, whether they agree with or oppose the content of the post.