Surgical hand hygiene: scrub or rub?

University Hospital Basel, Division of Infectious Diseases & Hospital Epidemiology, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland. awidmer@uhbs.ch

The Journal of hospital infection 2013 Feb

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Surgical hand hygiene is standard care prior to any surgical procedure. Per-operative glove punctures are observed in almost 30% of all interventions, and a risk factor for postoperative infections. In the past, washing hands with antimicrobial soap and water (surgical scrub) was the norm, mainly with chlorhexidine or iodine. More recently, alcohol-based hand rub has been successfully introduced, showing greater effectiveness, less irritation to the hands, and requiring less time than washing hands. All products should have a remnant effect that delays microbial growth under the gloved hand. Some of the alcohol-based compounds are effective (as determined by the European Norm EN 12791) within 90 s whereas others require 3-5 min, similar to the scrub. The short procedure relies heavily on proper technique and timing, since lowering the exposure time to <90 s leads to significantly lower effectiveness of bacterial killing. Today, surgical hand hygiene should meet EN 12791 in Europe, or other standards, such as the US Food and Drug Administration tentative final monograph norm in the USA. It is best performed by using an alcohol-based hand rub, but a scrub with chlorhexidine-containing soap also meets these standards. Copyright © 2013 The Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.