Surgery Sponges: When Counting Just Isn't Enough
Radiofrequency ID (RFID) chips, commonly implanted to deter theft in products, collect road tolls, and track luggage, are now being tested in surgical sponges. Physicians are searching for a way to better ensure that when you go into the hospital for surgery, you don't take home a surgical sponge as a souvenir. According to a small study at Stanford University, the sponges have radio transmitters inside that will alert surgeons to the fact that they have miscounted and left the sponge inside the patient. Preliminary results of this study appear in Medical News Today, the largest independent online health and medical news website.
As reported in the current edition of Archives of Surgery, eight real surgical patients had a sponge implanted by a first surgeon, which a second surgeon, blinded to the sponge type, detected in every instance by using the prototype wand. The sponges were located in approximately three seconds, with no false-positive readings. According to Dr. Alex Macario, the physican who led the study at Stanford, the device worked 100% of the time. He also noted that challenges still exist in incorporating the device into the workflow in the opreating room and reducing the chip sizes to a more practical size.
Another study found that one in ten thousand surgeries ends with a foreign item sewn inside the patient. Sponges are the most common item left. This negligence, if not quickly discovered, can lead to severe complications, including death.