A comparison of the effect of different surgical gloves on objective measurement of fingertip cutaneous sensibility

INTRODUCTIONThe prudent selection of surgical gloves can deliver significant efficiency savings. However, objective data are lacking to compare differences in cutaneous sensibility between competing gloves. Therefore, the present study examined the use of a single comparable model of sterile surgical glove from two competing providers, Gammex PF HyGrip® (Ansell Limited, Red Bank, NJ, USA) with Biogel® (Molnlycke Health Care AB, Goteborg, Sweden). SUBJECTS AND METHODSCutaneous pressure threshold, static and moving two-point discrimination were measured as indices of objective surgical glove performance in 52 blinded healthcare professionals. RESULTSThe mean cutaneous pressure threshold was 0.0680 ± 0.0923 g for skin, 0.411 ± 0.661 g for Ansell gloves and 0.472 ± 0.768 g for Biogel gloves. Skin was significantly more sensitive than Ansell (P< 0.0001) or Biogel (P< 0.0001) gloves (Wilcoxon signed rank test). There was no statistical difference between Biogel and Ansell gloves (P = 0.359). There was no signif...