What is the primary function of a Secondary Engineering Control (SEC)?

The primary function of a Secondary Engineering Control (SEC) is indeed to prevent contamination in the buffer area. The SEC, which includes clean rooms and controlled areas where sterile compounding occurs, plays a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of the sterile environment. It supports the primary engineering control, which is the specific equipment that directly creates the sterile environment, such as a Class II biological safety cabinet or a compounding aseptic isolator.

While the SEC does contribute to air quality monitoring and helps to ensure that the environment is suitable for sterile preparation, its main goal is to create a secondary line of defense against contamination in the area where sterile compounding activities take place. This is essential for protecting compounded sterile preparations from contamination, ensuring patient safety and compliance with regulatory standards.

Creating a sterile environment, which is often associated with the primary engineering control, relies on the infrastructure provided by the SEC, but the focus of the SEC is to prevent contamination specifically in the buffer area where various preparations occur.