By Alison McCook
More than one in 10 duodenoscopes remain contaminated even after they are reprocessed following protocols established by the manufacturer, researchers have found. And a second round of cleaning helps only a little: When researchers reprocessed the contaminated scopes again, nearly one in seven remained contaminated.
Keeping scopes clean is a struggle, but these findings show that even when facilities follow instructions to the letter, they often fail, said Jacob Mark, MD, the