Hydroentanglement Technology Applied to Wet Formed and Other Precursor Webs, 1990 Nonwovens Conference Proceedings

Medical personnel have become concerned about whether traditional medical garb is able to Protect them from diseases carried in the blood or other body fluids of patients. Existing test methods do not model the conditions under which blood strikethrough has been observed in actual use. In addition, such tests as are used have water as a test fluid. We have developed a simple gravimetric test based on the events in surgery which lead to blood strikethrough. We have explored the key variables of this test and found it to be robust. Using this test and both blood and urine as test fluids we have evaluated commercially available medical garb and found significant differences between products depending on fabric construction, composition, and surface finish. Subsequent testing with body fluids contaminated with microorganisms showed that lower fluid penetration correlated with reduced micro-organism penetration, suggesting that differences in body fluid penetration are important in the protection of medical personnel.