The Results of Endoscopic Disinfection by Enzymatic Solution Compared to Chlorhexidine Sorapat Eakthunyasakul, Pradermchai Kongkam, Rungsun Rerknimitr Introduction: The current standard requirement for endoscope reprocessing requires high level of disinfection. Chlorhexidine is one of the solutions that have been accepted for endoscope cleansing. Persistent bacterial contamination because of failure to clear bacterial biofilm may occur. The new enzymatic detergent (3E ZYME, Hartfordshire, UK) has been proposed to use in order to reduce this problem but the efficacy of this detergent has never been compared to chlorhexidine. Methods: A prospective randomized controlled study was undertaken to evaluate the disinfection capacity of gastroscope cleansing by these 2 agents. There were 260 specimens collected from 5 different gastroscopes. Manual cleansing was done for 10 minutes by these 2 agent separately (n Z 130 each). Then all scopes underwent 2% glutaraldehyde soaking for 20 minutes. After 70% alcohol rinsed, sterile normal saline was flushed into scope channels and specimens were obtained. The specimens were sent for aerobic bacterial culture after membrane filtered method. Significant bacterial growth was defined as a colony count more than 180 CFU/ml. (Guideline from MMWR June 2003) Results: The result is shown in the table. Summary: The rate of bacterial contamination in the scope after enzymatic bacterial decontamination was low and similar to conventional chlorhexidine cleansing technique. Conclusion: Enzymatic detergent is not better than 4% chlorhexidine for endoscope decontamination. Abstracts