Update on steam sterilisation and bench-top sterilisers (autoclaves).

Effectiveness of Bench Top Non-Vacuum Autoclaves on Dental Turbine Chamber Sterilization

Introduction: Dental turbine chamber is a suitable reservoir for living microorganisms, so chamber sterilization is necessary for reducing cross contamination risk. On the other hand, in non-vacuum autoclaves, steam penetration into turbine chamber is doubtful, while they are still in use in dental clinics. In this study, performance of small non-vacuum autoclave in turbine chamber sterilizatio...

Effects of Non-Condensable Gases (NCGs) on Steam Sterilisation Processes

The dangers posed by non-condensable gases (NCGs) in steam sterilisation processes have long been underestimated. Biological indicators, or the best chemical indicators on the market, do not signal the presence of a NCG content of up to 10% in a sterilisation process so long as there is mixing of steam and NCGs in the sterilisation chamber. Already back in 1963, Bowie and Dick (1) demonstrated ...

An evaluation of washer-disinfectors (WD) and dishwashers (DW) effectiveness in terms of processing dental instruments.

PURPOSE The aim of this study is to consider the effectiveness of a small sample of dishwashers (DW) compared to washer-disinfectors (WD) for cleaning dental instruments prior to sterilisation. Processing instruments in the context of this article means cleaning and disinfecting the instruments. MATERIALS AND METHODS A number of tests were carried out on three domestic dishwashers and two ins...

Practical Guide to Autoclave Validation

by Raymond G. Lewis, PE In addition to potential business liabilities, there can be significant costs associated with an autoclave validation process. The practical experience that this article is based on may provide assistance in ensuring an effective, efficient validation process for steam sterilization. Introduction This article is based on practical experiences gained by the author while c...

A Comparison of Fundamental Performance between Two Bench Top Clinical Chemistry Analyzers