Exactly where would doctors send a needle for testing for infectious organisms
after a needle stick in cases where the testing could make a difference for
doctors and their patients?...

What is being asked is not about protocol. What is being asked is
about where the testing would be done in cases where the test results
could make a difference to the doctors and their patients. It is one thing
for doctors explaining that needles are not tested and would not know
where to have a needle tested anyway compared with knowing where to send
a needle for testing for infectious organisms and explaining that in the
light of knowing where it would not be necessary.

Why would they want to send the needle? You really don't care about the
needle as much as the person it came from. If you know the person it came
from then you test the patient. It is pointless in testing the needle. What
if you have a dripping needle and you get stuck with it in which case most
of the {*filter*} gets transfered to the pucture and none remains on the needle.
Testing of the needle turns up negative for everything, what good is that?
You cleaned the needle off.

Testing the needle will give useless false negative results.
The relative risk of the needle increases with the bore size as the larger
the {*filter*} transfer.
Get a study in which HIV patients or hepatitis patients are stuck and the
needles tested for those organisms. Do you really expect all of those to be
positive and what good are the findings when they come back a week later?
Rapid HIV testing is based on antibody presence not PCR.

Thank you Robert !

Where can needles be tested !?...

Testing the needle is NOT part of any needlestick workup. Contact the CDC
and look up info on needlestick protocols.

For any needlestick workup you need to test the source patient's {*filter*} for
presence of antibodies to Hepatitis B and C and HIV. The HIV ab test should
be a rapid test so that anti-retroviral therapy can be decided on if
positive and not started if negative. The "stuck" person is also tested for
the same things to prove an antibody conversion - if they test negative and
then a few weeks later test positive then the conversion can be traced to
the needlestick.

--

Laboratory Information, QA Manager
VA Medical Center
Providence, RI

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any
position of the Government or VA.

Thank you for the information John Gentile !

Where would needles be tested as a method of quality control in manufacturing and
packaging needles to make sure that those needles would not end up with some infectious
organisms?...

The only way to make sure that manufactured and packaged needles would not be infected
would be to test them.

References
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=sci.med.labo...
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=y443c4...

*plonk*

"Don Saklad" wrote ...

No. Needles are gamma irradiated after packaging. the chances of any stary
bugs getting through that is somewhat remote, and even accepting that kind
of miracle, one or two individual bugs would not be a viable infection risk.

It's not a physical problem; it's an anxiety issue.

The quality control departments of companies that produce sterile
instruments and equipment. Sterility checks are performed to insure that all
the bugs are killed as the last step in manufacturing. It may not involve
testing the the needles themselves but adding a resistent bacteria in a vial
along with the needles.and then trying to grow that bacteria, usually a
spore forming bacteria of Clostridium. Spore formers are hard to kill so if
it kills them then it can kill all other bacteria.
If you want to play with it then you can send them to a commercial
microbiology lab and not a medical one as they don't really care about that.
Needles are used all the time in {*filter*} cultures and if they were to be
contaminated then we would hear about it pretty quickly as contamination
rates are recorded and followed closely from a qualilty performance in
keeping the contamination rate down.
I don't know what you are getting at?
http://www.***.com/
http://www.***.com/
p%3Dsci.med.laboratory

Thank you Robert !

Please let me know of any particular laboratory should you happen upon the information...

It is the direct enquriy as expressed even though it appeared other
replies have emphasized the broad clinical modalities.

oo__  dWs

Manufacturing QM/PI has nothing to do with post-exposure clinical
specimen testing, which is what you asked about earlier.

Other replies' emphasis on clinical issues directly addressed your
stated question, "How to get needles tested after needle sticks."

If your real question is how lab equipment is inspected prior to use,
then you might want to restate the question under a new Subject line,
which doesn't ask about "Needle sticks".