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Hydrogen peroxide vapor reduced risk of acquiring MDROs in hospital
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Room disinfection with hydrogen peroxide vapor, a “no-touch technology,” reduced the risk for multidrug-resistant organisms, recent study results suggest.
“We found that the use of this technology, above and beyond cleaning, reduced the risk of patients acquiring infections if they were housed in a room where the previous patient had a resistant organism,” Trish Perl, MD, Msc, professor of medicine, pathology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, told Infectious Disease News. “The impact of the technology was most pronounced with organisms that have a known predilection for the environment.”
Trish Perl
Perl and colleagues conducted the 30-month prospective cohort intervention study on six high-risk units at a hospital. There was a 12-month preintervention period. Three of the units, in which a patient with known infection or colonization with a multidrug-resistant organism had stayed, underwent hydrogen peroxide vapor disinfection after the patients were discharged. During the preintervention phase, monthly environment samples were taken for 3 months. During the intervention phase, monthly environmental samples were taken for 6 months.
Patients who were admitted to a room that was decontaminated with hydrogen peroxide vapor were 64% less likely to acquire a multidrug-resistant organism (IRR=0.36; 95% CI, 0.19-0.70). They were 80% less likely to acquire vancomycin-resistant enterococci (IRR=0.20; 95% CI, 0.08-0.52). Although the risk for acquiring Clostridium difficile, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus and multidrug-resistant gram-negative rods was reduced, this was not significant. The number of rooms that were environmentally contaminated reduced significantly in the units that underwent hydrogen peroxide vapor disinfection, but not in units that did not undergo vapor disinfection.
Perl said that the hydrogen vapor technology has been integrated into practice at Johns Hopkins Hospital, especially in high-risk settings like ICUs. They also use it to clean equipment that moves between patients, such as scales and wheel chairs, and other difficult-to-clean items like computer keyboards.
“We need to figure out how to best use the technology and to use it as cost-effectively as possible,” Perl said. “The next set of questions to be answered is whether we can target which rooms or patients are at high-risk of transmitting infections to the next patient.”
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