ABSTRACT
Temperature and pressure sensitive items are frequently sterilized in healthcare facilities with ethylene oxide (EtO). The effect of serum and salt on gas sterilizer performance is important, as many narrow-lumened instruments requiring gas sterilization are difficult to clean and may contain serum and/or salt when placed in the sterilizer. A lumen adapter recommended for the Sterrad sterilizer was inserted into one end of the flexible tubing as described by the manufacturer. The chapter provides a direct comparison of several sterilizers using a wide range of microorganisms in a defined quantitative manner. The inability of all of the sterilizers to eradicate organisms from lumens when there was serum and/or salt present raises important issues. The vaporized hydrogen peroxide and ion plasma technologies are attractive because they have shorter turnaround times compared to 100 percent EtO sterilizers. However, there are few published, independent evaluations of the effectiveness of these sterilizers.
