INFECTION and contamination control and hygiene products manufacturer Tristel has received a boost from clinical trials of its Tristel Wipes System.

The results were revealed by Brandon Hitchcock, a consultant Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon at Tauranga Hospital in New Zealand at the 11th Congress for German Hospital Hygiene, held in Berlin.

In a randomised single-blind comparison of the effectiveness of the high-level disinfectants Tristel Wipes, Cidex OPA (Johnson & Johnson) and Perasafe (Du Pont) for use with flexible nasendoscopes, the study, which involved 195 patients, concluded that none of the disinfectant agents proved harmful to patients.

However, in terms of ease of use and user safety, the Tristel Wipes were statistically superior to the other two disinfection methods, using recognised scoring measures.

The Tristel Wipes System also achieved the fastest turnaround time for the instrument disinfected (2.7 minutes versus 27.4 minutes for Cidex OPA) and eliminated any requirement for capital expenditure.

The Tristel Wipes System uses the company’s patented chlorine dioxide chemistry and comprises a pre-clean wipe to remove surface soiling, a sporicidal wipe that kills harmful organisms within 30 seconds, and a rinse wipe.

Tristel chief executive Paul Swinney said: “This is the second in-use clinical study that has demonstrated the superiority of a Tristel instrument disinfectant (in this case the Wipes System) over other, longer-established methods.

“When it comes to instrument disinfection, there is in fact very little published data generated from the actual use of products in the clinical setting. The findings of these two studies involving the innovative products Tristel have developed for ENT, urology and cardiology, help explain the 55% growth in their sales that we achieved in our first half.”