Preventing biofilm-related and hospital-acquired infections is a constant battle for many medical practitioners, but help is at hand. Cygnus Medical designs and manufactures the tools to effectively capture and remove these dangerous contaminants from medical instruments. Here, the company introduces its latest innovation: Draco Deep-Cleaning Pads.
Cygnus Medical offers a variety of practical solutions for everyday healthcare problems through the development of insightful and innovative products for the endoscopy suite, the operating room and the sterile processing department.
Draco Deep-Cleaning Pads are one of the newest products that Cygnus Medical has developed to help hospital professionals wage the war against biofilm and hospital-acquired infections. The pads use a unique combination of materials to detach, capture and remove biofilms, and other forms of adhered contamination.
Biofilm colonies: defeated
Draco Deep-Cleaning Pads effectively remove contaminants adhered to flexible endoscopes and stainless steel surgical instruments. When biofilm colonies develop, the extreme stickiness of the extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) matrix renders them very difficult to remove. Enzymatic detergents alone are not able to effectively remove biofilms.
Draco Deep-Cleaning Pads are made up of three specially designed and unique layers: the split microfibre layer, which captures microscopic particles as small as 4µ in size; the contour foam layer, which easily wraps around instruments for thorough cleaning; and the scrubbing layer, which has been engineered for extreme scrubbing at a microscopic level.
The Draco Deep-Cleaning Pad’s scrubbing layer breaks the bonds that adhere biofilm clusters to surfaces, and the pad’s microfibre layer then captures and removes these harmful pathogens.
All Draco Deep-Cleaning Pads are non-abrasive and are safe for use on delicate optics. A fibre-free version is also available for sterile stainless steel surgical instruments.
Tried and tested
A recent study performed at the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University – Bozeman (see above) shows that the mechanics of scrubbing and the formation of the substrates have a far greater effect on cleaning outcomes than the various chemistries of enzymatic detergents.
The study also showed that Draco Deep-Cleaning Pads have significantly greater log reductions than competing urethane pads currently on the market.
