Dear Sirs;

Can Plasma sterilization totally replace the EtO technique for sterilizing the medical products that are currently used in the Operating Room? Is there any experimental proof to it?

Best Regards
Yekta Ulgen
Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Bogazici University
Istanbul - Turkey
[email protected]

Good day Yekta,

The quick answer to your question is yes, there are some rare items that may be sterilized with EtO that cannot be sterilized in a plasma sterilizer, specifically, powders, cellulose containing paper and cloth, and long narrow lumens.
May I refer you back to questions Q00011, Q00030, and Q00111 for more information on this issue.

Regarding proof, the original tests are part of the 401(K) application. I suspect that your J&J sales rep will be happy to provide copies of this and more recent investigations. (AJIC 1998;26:136-138, for example, has a description of an experiment with endoscopes and plasma sterilization)

Regards, Pete Bobb

Dear,

Again I join on to the answer of Pete. I just want to make an additional comment. The most important issue if you want to stop EtO sterilization is not to switch (almost) everything to gasplasma but to switch to (and buy) as much steam sterilisable medical devices as possible. What's left over you can put in a gasplasma sterilizer - if compatible - or outsource.

Kind regards,
Wim Renders