Study Demonstrates 80 Percent Reduction of Surface Contamination by Copper-Impregnated Hard Surface

Dr. Chetan Jinadatha and his team at the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System (CTVHCS) published results from a study demonstrating that a novel copper-infused material, EOScu, is capable of reducing 80 percent of the bacterial contamination on surfaces surrounding a patient.

The study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, examined the amount of bioburden, or microbial contamination, on overbed tables in occupied regular and isolation patient rooms. While typical laminate overbed tables showed consistently high levels of bacterial contamination over the 30-hour sampling period, the tables made from EOScu maintained consistently low contamination, well below the threshold for patient safety.

“Our study showed that the copper-impregnated, self-sanitizing solid surfaces (EOScu) accumulated lower bioburden over time compared with the non-EOScu surfaces.” Dr. Jinadatha said. 

Patient room bioburden, the amount of microbiological or organic material present prior to decontamination or sterilization, has been demonstrated to correlate with patient infection rates. This first phase of Jinadatha’s study confirms that EOScu decreases the bacteria on the surface between routine cleaning. The next stage of the study, currently underway, will verify the surface’s ability to reduce HAIs and costs associated with readmissions. In another recent study, EOScu Preventive|Biocidal Surfaces™, alongside Cupron, Inc.’s copper-impregnated textiles, were shown to reduce HAIs in an acute care hospital in Norfolk, Virginia.

An interesting finding of the study at CTVHCS involved the contamination levels in isolation rooms. When a patient is placed in isolation, all visitors and healthcare workers are required to wear gowns, gloves, masks and sometimes caps and shoe covers, with an attempt to minimize the movement of contamination in and out of the patient room. When Jinadatha tested the control overbed tables, those made from laminate, he discovered that the tables in isolation rooms were far cleaner than those in regular rooms, as he expected. However, not only did the isolation-room EOScu tables have lower levels, the EOScu tables used in regular rooms were equally as clean. 

“These results also suggested that an EOScu surface may mitigate an isolation status effect where rooms without isolation precautions accumulate more bioburden than rooms with isolation precautions.” In other words, EOSCU tables in rooms without isolation precautions are equally as clean as those EOSCU surfaces in isolation rooms, meaning any additional contamination brought in is destroyed.

“We are very pleased with the results,” said Ken Trinder, CEO of EOS Surfaces and the inventor of EOScu. “Most importantly, we are happy to see that our material may have a positive impact on the health care of our nation’s veterans.”