HERE鈥橲 one from the 鈥榮imple ideas are the best鈥� department: a double-barrelled syringe that could prevent blood tests becoming contaminated with skin bacteria and giving the wrong results.
To test for blood infections, a sample is drawn from a patient鈥檚 vein and cultured to see if bacteria are present. Ideally the skin puncture site should be thoroughly sterilised, but this takes up to 2 minutes and the process is often cut short, resulting in contamination of around 6 per cent of the 6 million blood cultures performed every year in the US alone.
The solution, dreamed up by microbiologist-turned-inventor Juan Walterspiel of Atlanta, Georgia, consists of a miniature syringe and a standard-sized syringe attached to a single needle by a y-shaped connector. Once the needle has been introduced into the patient鈥檚 vein, the first millilitre of blood 鈥� the portion most likely to carry skin contaminants 鈥� is drawn into the smaller syringe. The rest of the blood is then drawn into the main syringe and used for the test.
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Walterspiel is seeking a commercial backer. He believes the device would add less than a dollar to the cost of performing each culture and so would be a cost-effective way of minimising the number of false results. Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education in Ramsey, Indiana, thinks this is erring on the cheap side, but agrees the double syringe might be 鈥渁n effective last resort鈥� for poorly trained staff.
