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Posted By Lisa Davies
Our organisation has replaced glutaraldehyde as a means of sterilizing medical equipment with one of the many ortho-phthalaldehyde on the market. Looking at the product information, including the Data Sheet it could be deemed non hazardous! However, as a responsible organisation we wish to continue monitoring levels as we did with Glute. Has anyone any information with regard to monitoring strategies or any other information (particularly from a COSHH assessment point of view)they'd be willing to share?
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Posted By John D Crosby
Lisa
I recently received this in an email from our Occupational Health Consultant re ortho-phthalaldehyde:
27th April Johnson & Johnson have issued a customer letter advising of "anaphylaxis like reactions in bladder cancer patients undergoing repeated cystoscopies" and withdrawing it for this use. Also they say, "Additionally, we received reports that in rare instances healthcare workers experienced an irritation or possible allergic reaction that may be associated with exposure to CIDEX OPA solution".
You might want to ask your supplier about this.
John C
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Posted By John Webster
I am bound to treat with respect any chemical used for destroying living organisms!
From a H&S point of view, the main advantage of OPA over GA is that OPA has a lower vapour pressure. This means that when exposed to the atmosphere the resulting atmospheric concentration will be lower.
My main concern is that OPA has not been around as long as GA, and so we cannot really know what all the possible long term health effects might be.
Of course we are switching over - with the available health information on the two chemicals it would be impossible to justify not doing so.
But we will also be using OPA with a new washer/disinfector to ensure (afarp) an enclosed system with minimal risk of vapours entering the work environment and continuing health surveillance of potentially exposed CSSD and Theatre staff.
John
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