Wand finds surgery tools left in patients

A new device for tracking and locating "retained objects" -- things left in patients after an operation -- is getting a closer look in the medical community.

Manufactured by RF Surgical Systems of Bellevue, Wash., the RF Surgical Detection System uses a scanning wand to find any tagged items remaining in a patient. Tags (or seeds) about the size of a rice grain are embedded in gauze, sponges and the like. With one wave of the wand over the patient it is designed to reveal if the coast is clear.

"Nurses count everything that goes into the patients -- sponges, gauze, instruments, sharps and they count everything that comes out," said Kevin Cosens, chief executive of RF Surgical Systems. "If the counts don't match, then, of course, they can't close the patient."

According to the New England Journal of Medicine researchers, "The incidence we found of 1 in 8,801 to 1 in 18,760 inpatient operations corresponds to one case or more each year for a typical, large hospital." Because the study was based on malpractice claims, those numbers were most likely underestimates, researchers said. Cosens said that numbers from Minnesota, which reports all surgical errors, indicate there is a retained object in 1 in 8,000 surgeries.

The wand is designed to aid in the prevention of leaving objects behind in the event that an accurate count has not been kept. More than 100 hospitals are using the system, Cosens said, which adds the extra layer of security at a cost of about $15 per surgery.