Morin P
Laboratoire d'Hygiéne et de Recherché en Santé Publique C.H.R.U. de Nancy-Brabois, Nancy, 54000, France.
J Hosp Infect. 2000 Jul;45(3):218-24. doi: 10.1053/jhin.2000.0732.
Renal haemodialysis care units in hospitals use enormous amounts of potable water for the functioning of 'artificial kidneys'. In order to avoid complications with patients' blood this water has to be specially treated. However, the treatment line itself can induce problems due to a high concentration of bacteria in the water. A high bacterial load, as well as bacterial toxins, can provoke immunological reactions in the patients. This paper shows that a granular activated carbon (GAC) filter is a source of bacterial contamination of the water due to the presence of a biofilm on the medium's surface. The majority of the bacteria released are Gram-negative. Because sloughing events in the biofilm can lead to dangerously high concentrations of bacteria and endotoxin levels in water, it is important to control this phenomenon. In treatment lines, GAC filters are regularly chlorinated. Our pilot experiment studied the disinfection of the filter with sodium hypochlorite and peracetic acid. Our results show that both disinfectants have a weak and transient effect on the biomass in the filter. It appears that chemical treatment of the filter is not the ideal solution to the bacteriological threat. Moreover, disinfection of the GAC filter transiently increases the contamination of the water. Alternative solutions to the use of chemical disinfection procedures are discussed.
医院的肾透析护理单元在“人工肾”的运行过程中会消耗大量的饮用水。为避免患者血液出现并发症，这种水必须经过特殊处理。然而，由于水中细菌浓度过高，处理流程本身可能引发问题。高细菌载量以及细菌毒素会在患者体内引发免疫反应。本文表明，由于介质表面存在生物膜，颗粒活性炭（GAC）过滤器是水的细菌污染源。释放出的大多数细菌为革兰氏阴性菌。由于生物膜中的脱落事件会导致水中细菌和内毒素水平达到危险的高浓度，因此控制这一现象很重要。在处理流程中，GAC过滤器会定期进行氯化处理。我们的试点实验研究了用次氯酸钠和过氧乙酸对过滤器进行消毒的情况。我们的结果表明，这两种消毒剂对过滤器中的生物量都有微弱且短暂的影响。看来对过滤器进行化学处理并非应对细菌威胁的理想解决方案。此外，对GAC过滤器进行消毒会使水的污染暂时增加。本文还讨论了替代化学消毒程序的解决方案。
