Sharp injuries in Japanese operating theaters of HIV/AIDS referral hospitals 2009-2011.

The aim of this study was to identify how doctors and nurses experienced sharps injuries in operating rooms and the risks for these injuries by analyzing data from 78 Japanese hospitals participating in the nationwide EPINet surveillance system. The years of professional experience of the cases were classified into tertiles separately for doctors and nurses. Suture needles accounted for 54.

Incidence rate of needlestick and sharps injuries in 67 Japanese hospitals: a national surveillance study.

Background: Determining incidence rates of needlestick and sharps injuries (NSIs) using data from multiple hospitals may help hospitals to compare their in-house data with national averages and thereby institute relevant measures to minimize NSIs. We aimed to determine the incidence rate of NSIs using the nationwide EPINet surveillance system.

Methodology/principal Findings: Data were analyzed from 5,463 cases collected between April 2009 and March 2011 from 67 Japanese HIV/AIDS referral hospitals that participated in EPINet-Japan.

Needlestick injuries to the feet of Japanese healthcare workers: a culture-specific exposure risk.

A comparison of needlestick injury surveillance data from Japan and the United States revealed a higher proportion of foot injuries to Japanese healthcare workers (HCWs), compared with US HCWs. This study investigates the underlying factors that contribute to this difference and proposes evidence-based prevention strategies to address the risk, including the use of safety-engineered needle devices, point-of-use disposal containers for sharp instruments and devices, and closed-toe footwear.

Allopurinol challenge tests performed before and after living-related donor liver transplantation in citrullinaemia.

We performed allopurinol challenge tests to evaluate the metabolic state of a citrullinaemic patient who received a living-relative donor liver transplant. Before transplantation, large amounts of orotic acid and orotidine were excreted during the challenge test. Following transplantation, excretion of these compounds in response to allopurinol was normalised.