Wiederkehr JC, Gama RR, Wiederkehr HA, Stelmasuk K, Carvalho CA, Wiederkehr BA. Radio-frequency identification of surgical sponges in the abdominal cavity of pigs.
Ann Med Surg (Lond) 2015;
3:31-3. [PMID:
25568782 PMCID:
PMC4268477 DOI:
10.1016/j.amsu.2014.03.002]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2013] [Revised: 02/23/2014] [Accepted: 03/02/2014] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Counting the sponges is an important step in surgical procedures. A miscount may impact the patient's health, and it also has legal implications for the surgeon. This is an experimental study evaluating radio-frequency technology used in the perioperative period to identify surgical sponges left in the peritoneal cavity of swine.
METHODS
Radio-frequency labeled-disc identification tags were sewn into 40 surgical towels. Twenty labels had the ability to emit radio-frequency waves, and 20 labels were inert to radio-frequency identification. Twenty adult pigs that underwent laparotomy and randomly received two surgical sponges were scanned by a radio-frequency identification antenna.
RESULTS
This method presented a positive predictive value of 100% and 100% specificity and sensitivity, as all of the tagged surgical sponges were detected.
CONCLUSION
Radio-frequency identification has been proved to be a useful method for the identification of surgical sponges within the abdominal cavities of swine.
Collapse