Another brick in the wall

No doubt attendees at the NAN AGM in less than a couple of weeks time will hear a bit more about the new "Best Practice Recommendations for Cleaning and Disinfection of Ultrasound Tranducers Whilst Maintaining Transducer Integrity" (2017) which were prepared by the European Committee for Medical Ultrasound Safety (ECMUS) http://www.efsumb.org/safety/resources/2017-probe_cleaning.pdf

As the recommendations are material (IMHO), we may even get a NAN announcement sometime next week.

I was pleasantly surprised by the release of the recommendations, but on reflection, it shouldn't have been a surprise because the ECMUS parent organisation is a member of the World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (WFUMB) which released "Guidelines for Cleaning Transvaginal Ultrasound Transducers Between Patients" earlier this year. These were discussed in a NAN media release on 27/2/17.

With the link to the recommendations available above, I won't deal with the nitty gritty, as people can digest the material for themselves (it's only 3 pages). However, there is one quote which is worth extracting, because it seems to me to be "pure gold":

"- Automatic processes such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2, e.g. Nanosonics Trophon EPR) or
ultraviolet (UV, e.g. Antigermix) methods are preferred, where approved by the manufacturer to
guarantee a reproducible standardised and fast process [11-15], as long as a full documentation of the disinfection process is available (preferably in digital form)." (ECMUS, 2017, page 3)

In essence, the above is a "homing beacon" to NAN's front door for European users of ultrasound transducers involved in semi-critical procedures, because even though Antigermix technology is mentioned along with trophon as one of two preferred types of automated disinfection methods, you would have to think that Nanosonics has the "rails run", as trophon:
  
1) is very significantly cheaper on a unit cost basis than Antigermix' Germitec units (as I understand it);
2) has a solid body of safety and efficacy testing evidence and routine use behind it in multiple jurisdictions;
3) has necessary regulatory approvals for use in Europe; and,
4) has been approved for use with their products by virtually all major ultrasound transducer manufacturers (not sure Antigermix can make the same claim).

zeno9