A 6-year retrospective review of injuries sustained during the Singapore Cricket Club International Rugby Sevens tournament.

There are limited studies looking at injury statistics for Rugby Sevens. This study aims to assess injury patterns among amateur players participating in the annual Singapore Cricket Club Rugby Sevens International tournament from 2012 to 2017, by performing a retrospective review of their injury data. Outcome measures include injury incidence rate, injury site, and comparative injury incidence between successive days of competition. A total of 343 injuries were recorded over 6 tournaments, with an injury incidence of 348.0 per 1000 player hours. The lower limb was the most commonly injured site (45.8%), and there was greater incidence of injuries on day 3 of competition compared to day 1 in 2013 and 2016. This study reports a higher level of background risk to Rugby Sevens than is reported in literature. A well designed-prospective injury surveillance study will be necessary to confirm these findings and to investigate risk factors to guide injury prevention programmes.

Surgical hand antisepsis-a pilot study comparing povidone iodine hand scrub and alcohol-based chlorhexidine gluconate hand rub

<p><b>INTRODUCTION</b>The surgeon uses different methods of surgical hand antisepsis with the aim of reducing surgical site infections. To date, there are no local studies comparing the efficacy of iodine hand scrub against newer alcohol-based hand rubs with active ingredients. Our pilot study compares a traditional aqueous hand scrub using 7.5% Povidone iodine (PVP-I) against a hand rub using Avagard: 61% ethyl alcohol, 1% chlorhexidine gluconate. The outcome measure is the number of Colony Forming Units (CFU) cultured from 10-digit fingertip imprints on agar plates.</p><p><b>MATERIALS AND METHODS</b>Ten volunteers underwent 2 hand preparation protocols, with a 30-minute interval in between-Protocol A (3-minute of aqueous scrub using PVP-I) and Protocol B (3-minute of hand rub, until dry, using Avagard). In each protocol, fingertip imprints were obtained immediately after hand preparation (t(0)). The volunteers proceeded to don sterile gloves and performed specific tasks (suturing). At one hour, the gloves were removed and a second set of imprints was obtained (t(1)).</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Four sets of fingertip imprints were obtained. All 10 participants complied with the supervised hand preparation procedures for each protocol. CFUs of initial fingertip imprints (t(0)): The median CFU counts for initial imprint was significantly higher in the PVP-I treatment (median = 6, Inter Quartile Range (IQR) = 33) compared to the Avagard treatment (median = 0, IQR = 0, P <0.001). CFUs of fingertip imprint at 1 hour (t(1)): The median CFU counts for second imprint (t(1)) was significantly higher in the PVP-I treatment (median = 0.5, IQR = 11) compared to the Avagard treatment (median = 0, IQR = 0, P = 0.009). Our results suggest that the Avagard was more efficacious than aqueous PVP-I scrub at reducing baseline colony counts and sustaining this antisepsis effect.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Alcohol hand rub with an active compound, demonstrated superior efficacy in CFU reduction. Based on our results, and those pooled from other authors, we suggest that alcohol-based hand rubs could be included in the operating theatre as an alternative to traditional surgical scrub for surgical hand antisepsis.</p>