ET tube cleaning

RE: ET tube cleaning

Steph MacPherson — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 21:48:37 GMT

We use the Milton sterilising tablets too, 1 tablet in a litre of cold water. I rinse any saliva off first with the cuff inflated, and bottle brush the inside. We use pipe cleaners for tiny cat tubes. The tubes are soaked for about 15 minutes - depends on how busy I am - sole charge head nurse - and then rinse really well inside and out, and air dry with the cuff lightly inflated. Tubes are always checked before use and chucked if there's any doubt about cuff patency. Steph - Te Kuiti New Zealand

RE: ET tube cleaning

Robyn — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 13:37:53 GMT

We soak tubes with the kits in instrument cleaner solution (no real time, sometimes up to a few hours), rinse thoroughly with water and scrub, rinse again, and soak down with surgical spirit (inside and out) before hanging up to dry. Don't seem to have too many problems with deterioration, but we don't routinely dispose of them unless there's a problem.

RE: ET tube cleaning

Julie-Anne Wilson — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 22:10:40 GMT

Our current protocol is:

Inflate cuff and rinse inside and out (using bottle brush for inside)
Soak in Enzystel for at least 10 minutes
Rinse and soak in Meddis for at least 10 minutes but preferably no longer than 30 minutes. We have Portex tubes and I've found longer soaking can stain them
Rinse and hang up to dry
Defate cuff the next morning before that day's ops begins

RE: ET tube cleaning

Vicky Ford-Fennah — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 09:01:35 GMT

Hiya,

Our protocol is:-

We put our tubes in a bucket of water after they are used to stop any residues becoming hard
inflate cuffs just before cleaning
Soak in hot water containing washing up liquid, for 5-10ish
Pipe cleaner the lumen (we put some washing-up liquid on the pipe cleaner as well) and clean the outside of the tube with a J cloth (we have a role of cheap ones and just dispose of it afterwards - but are cleaning at least twenty tubes at a time)
rinse with plenty of hot water to ensure all detergent residues are removed
soak in Milton solution for 20mins
rinse with hot water -makes them dry quicker(although you shouldn't need to rinse we like too as some of our cases are very long - over 3/4hrs!)
leave to air dry
once dry deflate cuffs

Hope that's useful!

Vicky

Vicky Ford-Fennah BSc(Hons) RVN VTS(anesthesia/analgesia) A1 VPAC

RE: ET tube cleaning

Shauna Whelan — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 22:54:55 GMT

Heya, we rinse ours with cuff inflated, use bottle brush to clean out inside, and then put in tray of Milton for cold sterilisation. We don't have a certain time we leave it in the Milton for its usually a few hours tbh then we rinse again and hang up to dry

RE: ET tube cleaning

Bridget Kuster — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 14:47:22 GMT

Hey,

remember that most ET tubes that exist are for the human world and intended for one use only! So any breakage is probably not abnormal.

But to answer your question, to clean I will: inflate cuff, soak in enzymatic cleaner, rinse, clean with brush, rinse, spray with diluted , let it sit, rinse, dry, deflate cuff... we probably throw them out after every 30 uses and gas sterilise after every 10.