A comparative assessment of contamination rates in gastrointestinal endoscope reprocessing: sterilization versus high-level disinfection.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the disparity in culture results between sterilization and high-level disinfection (HLD) for duodenoscopes and linear endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), and to assess the effectiveness of different bacterial contamination detection methods.

Methods: This is a prospective randomized study, including duodenoscopes and linear EUS with adenosine triphosphate bioluminescence assay values below 200 relative light units after manual cleaning which were randomly assigned to undergo either sterilization or HLD in a 1:1 ratio. Following disinfection, all endoscopes were subjected to adenosine triphosphate bioluminescence assay testing and cultures using both swab and liquid samples from endoscope channels.