Factors affecting the finding of cancer cells in the blood

✍ Scribed by R. A. Sellwood; S. W. A. Kuper; P. M. Payne; J. Ian Burn

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 391 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-1323
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.1800560903

✦ Synopsis

CANCER CELLS IN BLOOD 649 reduction of wound infection, but reasons are given for believing that compared with improvements in air cleanliness these are relatively insignificant.

4. The only exception to variables other than clean

air that might have contributed significantly to the improvement in sterility is an improved form of wound closure. How far this contributed to the final level of wound infection cannot be decided on the figures available.

Despite operating in practically sterile air there still remained 1.3 per cent of wound infections and arguments are advanced to suggest that they are exogenous.

6. There I S experimental evidence, published elsewhere, that this residual infection is acquired from the bodies of the surgeons or others in the operating team, through permeability of the textile of the gown.

7. The elimination of infection by organisms other than Staph. a r e u s as a result of improved aseptic techniques was a striking feature.

8. The diminutioninnumbers of sterile 'infections' as a result of operating in near-sterile air suggests that they were due to organisms of very low pathogenicity present in the air during the operation. This pattern of incidence exonerates the chemical action of buried plastics as the cause of late infections from which no organism can be cultured. 9. A feature of the infections originally considered to be peculiar to this type of operation, namely the first appearance of signs of deep infection many months later, has become less evident as a result of improved asepsis in the operating theatre. This also reduces the possibility of plastic materials being responsible for chemical irritation and the late appearance of complications seen in the early part of this work.