DECONTAMINATION
Establishing material compatibility
When reprocessing surgical instruments, material compatibility is important, and so is cleaning efficacy. To explore the impact of pH during cleaning, Christian Garbin, technical market manager for Belimed, describes the comparison between a neutral enzymatic and a mild alkaline enzymatic cleaner. As well as comparing the two cleaners, further explorations were carried out to establish whether there could be a visible or measurable difference between two cleaners of the same class, namely mild alkaline enzymatic cleaners.
Material compatibility is an important topic when it comes to instrument cleaning. Often CSSD personnel are facing the challenge to find the often-difficult balance between successful cleaning and compatibility of processes for valuable instruments, that will enable instruments to be utilised for their full recommended life. Replacing instruments which have been damaged due to harsh cleaning processes is an expensive upshot in a hospitals budget. To demonstrate the value-added benefit of excellent material compatibility in combination with efficacious cleaning outcomes via the new generation of cleaning and disinfecting chemicals from the Belimed Protect range of cleaning and disinfecting chemistries, Belimed has performed and documented an extended material compatibility test. The test was centred around the Belimed Protect Mild Alkaline Enzyme Cleaner as it’s the product with the broadest range of applications. This detergent was designed for use with automated washer disinfectors, manual cleaning and ultrasonic cleaning. Further, it is also suitable for robotic surgical instruments (da Vinci), anaesthesia
Aluminium Blue
Aluminium silver
Instrument steel with laser markings
Titanium colour
Silicone red
PEEK Titanium Nitride coated
Polyamide white
Figure 1. Tested Aesculap instrument materials
equipment, sterilisation containers, flexible endoscopes and many others.
Materials and methods
The aim of the study was to investigate the material compatibility of different cleaning chemistries with medical devices. The study was performed with three different detergents. One neutral enzymatic cleaner and two different mild alkaline enzymatic cleaners, one of which was the Belimed
Material compatibility is an important topic when it comes to instrument cleaning. Often CSSD personnel are facing the challenge to find the often-difficult balance between successful cleaning and compatibility of processes for valuable instruments, that will enable instruments to be utilised for their full recommended life.
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Protect Mild Alkaline Enzyme Cleaner and the other a market leading manufacturer, named in the study: Detergent A. To represent real instruments, eight different authentic materials from Aesculap Surgical were carefully chosen to represent a wide range of real medical devices, including aluminium for sterilisation containers. The tested materials are shown in figure 1. For the material compatibility test, it was decided to perform two different tests for comparison. The aim of these tests was to allow for visual comparison of results, which can then be correlated to degree of high or low material compatibility. Also, concentration, time and temperature were also taken into consideration. The tests were thus divided into two tests: Part A and Part B.
Immersion test with visual inspection Eight different materials commonly used for instruments were included in these tests. Test conditions concerning concentration and temperature were chosen according to the recommended reprocessing cycle. This led us to the following test setup.
NOVEMBER 2019
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