ECG Monitoring

All manufacturers supplying to SMH have stated that they have never made an ECG cable of latex and so the practice advised by other authorities of wrapping the cables in Micropore sticky tape is a total waste of time and damages the cables.

Hewlett Packard and Agilent are now called Phillips Medical, state emphatically that all cables are non-latex and safe! Datex/Ohmeda and Datascope agree likewise.

ECG Electrodes

Niko ECG electrodes and 3M ‘Red Dot’ electrodes have never had any latex content.
They are non-latex and safe.

Reusable SaO2 (Oxygen Saturation) probes:

 Nellcor saturation (SaO2) monitoring cables and DS-100A (Adult) & D-YS (paediatric) reusable probes have never had any latex content. They are non-latex and safe.

Please do not ever stick them on with sticky tape - especially Elastoplast (which is latex) because the capillary blood flow will be impeded and will lead to serious tissue damage.

Wrapping the finger in Micropore as suggested by other inexperienced authors just impedes the measurement and serves no useful or sensible function whatsoever.
The probes do not pose a risk in the first place.

Disposable SaO2 probes:

Nellcor Adult D-25 probes are non-latex and safe.

Nellcor Paediatric D-20 probes are non-latex and safe.

CAUTION: The Nellcor I-20 has brown sticky tape that looks like ‘Elastoplast’,
but - Quote: “Contains Dry Rubber content” - which means don’t use.
 Elastoplast should never be substituted on reattaching probes under any circumstances as tissue trauma will result! Use the enclosed clear sticky patches and a piece of non-latex tape instead!

Blood pressure Cuffs - Wards

Caution: The olde fashioned wrap around cuffs for the ward Shygmanometers Have latex bladders and tubing!

Accoson ward Aneroid BP devices have latex cuff bladders and tubing.

Accoson upright Mercury Shygmanometers have latex tubes & cuff bladders

Blood pressure Cuffs - ITU / HDU / Theatres / A&E

Caution: The current BP cuffs in use vary in latex content, follow this guide very carefully! The usual culprit is the latex bladder and the connection tails. Newer BP machines tend to have non-latex machine-to-cuff tubing.

Datex Omeda cuffs in Theatres, Day Surgery & MRI contain latex.
Only the special new cuffs with RED hoses are non-latex, (a blue non-latex been spotted) they are clearly marked as such - if there is no marking - then assume it is Latex.
Please take extreme care!

Nellcor & Datascope BP cuffs in ITU / A&E contain latex and are unmarked.

Hewlett Packard / Agilent / Phillips (same company!) ITU/ HDU/ A&E are non-latex as standard and are very clearly marked as such.
These cuffs are compatable with Nellcor machines too.

Nellcor, Datex, Ohmeda, HP, Agilent and Phillips now produce non-latex BP cuffs as standard. They are also very marked clearly as such.
           Immediate replacement  purchasing is reccomended.

[Home] [Gloves] [I V Equipment] [Monitoring] [Urinary Drainage] [Oxygen Therapy] [Dressings] [Miscellaneous]

Version 5  - Sept 2002