Medical gloves are disposable gloves used during medical examinations and procedures that help prevent cross-contamination between caregivers and patients. Medical gloves are made of different polymers including latex, nitrile rubber, vinyl and neoprene.

The medical gloves may be broken or punctured by medical apparatus, figure nails or other objects due to the reduced strength, which is the major problem encountered during the operation. Some large area damages of the gloves are obviously visible for the operators. However those tiny pores in the gloves are not easy to examine. Once the medical glove is broken, it will not be unable to prevent the patients from potential contamination or infection.

How to prevent the risks caused by broken medical gloves? First of all, the puncture resistance of the medical gloves should be tested prior to use. MED-01 Medical Packaging Tester is used as the testing instrument of medical gloves. In addition to puncture force, this instrument can be also used to test other properties of medical packaging. A simplified testing procedure is provided in the following for your reference.

l  Prepare 1.5cm by 1.5cm specimens. The specimens should be cut from different sections of the medical glove, such as figure and palm positions.

l  Install the No.6 hypodermic needle in the moveable axis of the instrument.

l  Clamp the test specimen centrally in the retaining device with exterior surface towards the hypodermic needle.

l  Click Start Test in the software interface. The test will be started automatically. The maximum force value will be recorded in the puncturing process.

Note: Please refer to the following figure for the moveable axis with hypodermic needle and the retaining device for the test specimen.

According to the test results, the users can select the products with adequate puncture resistance to avoid risks caused by breakage of the medical gloves. There is an alternative method i.e. wearing two pieces of gloves in one hand. Some statistics says that the breakage ratio of the inner gloves will be reduced below 10 percent by wearing two pieces of gloves. However another problem comes out: the flexibility of the figure will be compromised and as a result the precision of surgical operation will be reduced.

Therefore testing the puncture resistance before use is the essential way to solve the problems caused by broken gloves in process of surgical operation. In addition, the medical gloves should be replaced regularly because the strength of the gloves will be reduced after a period of use especially when the gloves are used in some operations where the body fluid, grease, bile and pancreatic juice may corrode the gloves.

For more details about MED-01 Medical Packaging Tester, please visit www.labthink.com

About Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd:

Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd is one leading supplier of packaging testing instruments, which is headquartered in Jinan, China and operated in Boston, U.S.A.