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. 1993 May;75(3):181–185.

To dry or not to dry? An assessment of the possible degradation in efficiency of preoperative skin preparation caused by wiping skin dry.

P W Kutarski 1, H C Grundy 1
PMCID: PMC2497913  PMID: 8323214

Abstract

A controlled study of the effects of wiping skin dry after application of aqueous povidone-iodine was carried out in 24 subjects. There was no significant difference in the reduction from baseline counts of skin flora at 5, 30, 60 and 120 min between wiping the agent off after 30 s of application and leaving it to dry. It would appear that wiping skin dry that has been prepared for operation with this solution in order to allow application of adhesive drapes is a bacteriologically safe practice.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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