consider the many different ways gloves can fail. Glove failures can
be caused by punctures, tears from sharp devices or spontaneous fail-
ures. And oftentimes, glove failures go unnoticed.
For a study that assessed glove perforation rates in 130 consecutive
orthopedic procedures, researchers tested nearly 1,500 gloves from all
surgical team members. The overall perforation rate was 3.58%. What's
really significant is that perforations went unnoticed nearly two-thirds
(61.5%) of the time. When you have an unnoticed glove perforation,
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | February 2015
