The effect of alcohol swabs and filter straws on reducing contamination of glass ampoules used for neuroaxial injections*
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We have investigated the incidence of contamination of the contents of glass ampoules used for neuraxial injections, and whether this was reduced by wiping the outsides of the ampoules with isopropyl alcohol or using a filter straw. One hundred fentanyl and diamorphine ampoules used for routine regional anaesthesia were either wiped or not wiped with alcohol before their contents were aspirated, and the residual contents were swabbed and incubated. None of the swabs from the wiped ampoules grew organisms compared with nine (18%) from non-wiped ampoules (p = 0.004). In a second, laboratory study, 100 glass ampoules of saline were coated with Staphylococcus aureus and divided into four groups: wiped/not wiped with alcohol and with/without a filter straw. The contents of the ampoules were aspirated; the remnants and the aspirate were swabbed and incubated as before. Most contamination occurred in the unwiped groups and although numbers were small, filtering appeared to reduce contamination further. As filter straws also reduce the risk of injecting glass particles (even if not contaminated), our results suggest that wiping glass ampoules with isopropyl alcohol and using a filter straw should be part of routine practice when performing regional anaesthesia.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".