Evaluation of Sterilization Methods for Medical Devices

Abstract

Medical devices are sterilized to prevent infections such as surgical site infection, central line-associated bloodstream infection, nosocomial infection and other infection that could affect the well-being of a patient. Because these devices come in contact with the human body, it is greatly essential to attain sterility which in simple term means the absence of all living organisms. The aim of the study is to evaluate Ethylene Oxide, gamma rays, steam autoclave, dry heat, formaldehyde, and Anderson system using fuzzy PROMETHEE method. This method uses a pair-wise comparison of alternatives for each criteria utilizing preference function which are then aggregated using criteria weighting to provide a net outranking flow and hence a complete ranking of alternatives. These criteria include cost, volume capacity, cycle time, temperature, and penetration power. These criteria are prioritized based on the degree of sterility. Result obtained shows that steam autoclave is a better sterilization method. This is because it has a much higher ratio of cost, penetration power, cycle time, temperature and volume capacity than others.