Dissecting an outbreak one scope at a time: Is this the new reality?

The infectious risk of ERCP has historically been ascribed to biliary stasis and obstructive physiology from stones, strictures, or stents. Recent outbreaks, many of them from multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), have been attributed to the infectious carriage of the duodenoscope itself: so-called exogenous infection. This has drawn considerable attention and research efforts intended to better characterize the contributory risk of each of the following factors: instrument design, reprocessing measures (eg, manual and automated cleaning), surveillance strategies for detecting instrument contamination, and other quality metrics.
Source: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Original article Source Type: research