Glove punctures and postoperative skin flora of hands in cardiac surgery

Background. Surgical gloves are frequently perforated during operations, including heart operations. This infection risk factor is inadequately studied. Methods. After preoperative hand disinfection and at the end of 116 heart operations, bacterial samples from hands of surgeons, altogether 800 samples, were taken. Glove punctures were examined with water test. Results. Surgeons changed 70 gloves because of breakage during operations. Additionally, 154 of 400 (39%) gloves had holes in postoperative testing. The breakage rate of gloves increased from 30% in operations shorter than 3 hours to 65% when operations were longer than 5 hours. High bacterial counts of the hands were also more common after prolonged operations. Conclusions. Glove puncture rates and bacterial counts of hands increase with increasing operation time. We recommend changing of both gloves when a puncture is detected. Before donning new gloves, hands should be disinfected.