Instrument Portfolio

What's the difference between cleaning, disinfecting and sterilizing? Let's take a look. This is the first in a series of four videos to discuss some best practices in caring for your surgical instrument investment. 

Inox, Titanium, Dumoxel®, Dumastar®, Antimagnetic... Have you ever looked at the variety of metal alloys for surgical instruments and laboratory tools and wondered which is best for your needs? Here's a brief rundown.

Surgical instruments are designed to perform diagnostic, therapeutic, or investigative operations having specific functions such as to cut or incise, retract, grasp, hold or occlude, dilate or probe, suture or ligate. 

The proper care and handling of surgical instruments is the simplest way to protect your investment and add years to the life of your instruments. Here is a handy infographics showing the steps for proper surgical instrument cleaning.

After a good cleaning and disinfection, your surgical instruments may be sterilized using a variety of methods. The chart below shows two common methods, autoclaving and cold sterilization. Sterilization destroys all microbial life. Some chemical sterilants can be used as high level disinfectants (HLD) when used for shorter exposure periods.

Although stainless steel is corrosion-resistant, it can still rust and stain if it is handled improperly. To determine if a discoloration is rust or just a stain, erase the discoloration with a pencil eraser. If there is pitting in the metal under the discoloration, it is corrosion. If the discoloration is removed, it was just a stain. 

What's the difference between cleaning, disinfecting and sterilizing? Let's take a look. This is the first in a series of four videos to discuss some best practices in caring for your surgical instrument investment.