Method of cleaning and sanitizing medical instruments and accessories and apparatus therefor

Abstract

A method of cleaning and sanitizing surgical tools or surgical instruments and accessories in general, and a device configured to implement the method. The method includes the use of a an abrasive cleaning material, which is emitted under pressure and at high speed to abrade and remove substances that adhere to the surfaces of the instruments and accessories, and the pressure of which can be regulated according to the type of surface to be cleaned.

Claims

1. A method of cleaning and sterilizing medical instruments or accessories, comprising: providing an abrasive cleaning material; and emitting the abrasive cleaning material under ejection pressure and at a predetermined speed against the medical instruments or accessories, thereby achieving a mechanical cleaning by abrading and removing adhered substances from surfaces of the medical instruments or accessories, wherein the abrasive cleaning material comprises a saline compound, and wherein the saline compound is ejected as a supersaturated solution; regulating the ejection pressure of the abrasive cleaning material; and rinsing the medical instruments or accessories in non-heated water.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the regulating the ejection pressure comprises adjusting the ejection pressure comprises adjusting the ejection pressure between 0.5 and 12 bar according to a material or materials, with which the medical instruments or accessories are made.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the adjusting the ejection pressure comprises adjusting the ejection pressure between 0.5 and 3 bars to treat plastic surfaces of the medical instruments or accessories.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the adjusting the ejection pressure comprises adjusting the ejection pressure between 1.5 and 8 bars to treat metallic surfaces of the medical instruments or accessories.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the saline compound has a predetermined granulometry based on a configuration of the medical instruments and accessories to be cleaned and of dimensions of depressions, cavities, interstices and roughness areas of surfaces of the medical instruments and accessories to be cleaned.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the saline compound comprises an alkaline bicarbonate salt.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the saline compound comprises a chlorine salt.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the saline compound has a granulometry between 10 and 700 m.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the saline compound has a granulometry between 70 and 600 m.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the saline compound comprises has a granulometry between 150 and 500 m.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising: selecting at least one granulometry of the abrasive cleaning material to be used; and emitting the abrasive cleaning material with the selected at least one granulometry.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the following steps: selecting a first granulometry of the abrasive cleaning material to be used; emitting the abrasive cleaning material with the first granulometry; selecting a second granulometry of the abrasive cleaning material to be used; and emitting the abrasive cleaning material with the second granulometry, wherein the steps of emitting the first granulometry and the second granulometry are performed in series or in parallel.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 illustrates a device according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

(2) For the implementation of the new process for cleaning and sanitizing surgical instruments a device, shown in FIG. 1, is used that comprises a closed sand blasting cabinet (C) suited to accommodate one or more instruments to be cleaned.

(3) According to the invention, inside said cabinet there is/are one or more supports (A) for said surgical instruments (S), suited to constrain the instruments and keep them in position during the sand blasting operation.

(4) Said supports (A) can be of the fixed or movable type, for example they can be rotated or translated, so as to expose the entire surface of the instrument to the jet emitted by the emitter nozzle (U).

(5) According to a possible embodiment of the invention, said emitter nozzle is movable, that is, travels along the three spatial directions and/or rotates, so as to direct the jet on the entire surface of the instruments to be cleaned. Said instruments to be cleaned can in turn be constrained to said fixed or movable supports, or held manually by the user.

(6) Said emitter nozzle can be moved manually or can be automated.

(7) According to a further alternative embodiment, said emitter nozzle is fixed inside the cabinet, and thus the jet is permanently oriented in the same direction. According to this solution, the instruments to be cleaned can be maneuvered manually by the operator, in order to expose their entire surface to the jet. Alternatively, said supports of the instruments to be cleaned are mechanized and movable, translating and/or rotating, thus completely automating the process.

(8) The device also comprises at least one abrasive material feed system, in turn comprising an abrasive material tank, and wherein, through at least one duct, a flow of pressurized air and/or water draws or thrusts said abrasive material from said tank and transports it to an emitter nozzle located inside said cabinet.

(9) By means of said emitter nozzle said abrasive material is ejected at high speed, inside said sand blasting cabinet, on said instruments to be cleaned. The device may also comprise a vacuum suction system for drawing the abrasive material inside said cabinet and an air filtering system for filtering the air flowing out of the cabinet and recovering the material used in at least one apposite container.

(10) Said sand blasting cabinet can have any shape and size and comprises a casing with at least one access door for introducing and extracting the surgical instruments.

(11) Said casing of the cabinet comprises also one or more check windows, one or two openings with sleeve glove suited to allow the operator to maneuver the sand blasting nozzle and/or to rotate the instruments to be cleaned inside the cabinet, and one discharge opening on the bottom of the cabinet.

(12) Said bottom of the cabinet can be shaped, for example, so as to favor the outflow of the waste material.

(13) The cleaning operations with sodium bicarbonate salts can thus be carried out inside said cabinet, both manually, by one or more operators at the same time, and in an automated manner, with the aid of appropriate instruments or suitable automated mechanical systems.

(14) Pressure/Hardness

(15) A key and peculiar feature of sodium bicarbonate is having a hardness that is much lower than sand.

(16) Using the Mohs scale for an empiric evaluation of the hardness of materials, sodium bicarbonate lays between 2.5 and 3, while sand, which is composed prevalently of silica compounds, lays between 6 and 7.

(17) Such hardness causes sand to affect the metal surface of surgical tools negatively. On the contrary, the abrasive action of sodium bicarbonate affects and removes all impurities that are disposed on the surgical tool and that have a lower hardness, but does not affects the metal surface, which has a higher hardness.

(18) Moreover, by varying the ejection pressure of the sodium bicarbonate, even less resistant materials can be treated, for example, plastics.

(19) A method according to the invention, therefore, include a step of regulating the ejection pressure of a saline compound or of the sodium bicarbonate, among other things, as a function of the hardness and granulometry of the bicarbonate.

(20) Characteristic hardness and dimensions of agglomerates of sodium bicarbonate are indeed features that have a limited intrinsic variability, especially because of the speed of the production process of sodium bicarbonate.

(21) In a method according to the invention, ejection pressure of the bicarbonate, and, accordingly, ejection speed, can be varied, for example, according to the type of object to be cleaned and of the material with which the object is made.

(22) Such ejection pressure is preferably between 0.5 and 12 bars and can be adjusted even during the cleaning process.

(23) In particular, when parts of plastic surgical instruments must be cleaned, ejection pressure is maintained between 0.5 and 3 bars, considering that the abrasive action must be limited to the impurities on the instrument without affecting the plastic layer.

(24) Instead, when parts of steel surgical instruments must be cleaned, that pressure is kept between 1.5 and 8 bars due to the higher hardness of the metal surface.

(25) Granulometry

(26) A method according to the invention includes using one or more alkaline bicarbonate salts, such as LiHCO.sub.3, NaHCO.sub.3, KHCO.sub.3, NH.sub.4HCO.sub.3, and/or one or more alkaline carbonate salts, such as Li.sub.2CO.sub.3, Na.sub.2CO.sub.3, K.sub.2CO.sub.3, (NH.sub.4).sub.2CO.sub.3), and/or chlorine salts, such as NaCl, KCl, NH.sub.4Cl.

(27) A cleaning step according to the invention includes removing substances that are attached or even strongly attached to the surfaces of an instrument by abrasion by emitting an abrasive cleaning material at high speed and with controlled granulometry against the instrument to be cleaned, and under conditions related to the type of surface to be cleaned.

(28) In particular, the abrasive cleaning material may include a saline compound of sodium bicarbonate. Compound shall not imply here that the salts must be chemically bound to another substance, but, in one embodiment, they may be mixed therewith, for example, may be dissolved in water.

(29) The un-dissolved portion of the sodium bicarbonate acts as an abrasive material.

(30) A method according to the invention includes a first step of evaluating the surfaces to be treated and the dimensions of corrugations, cavities or areas of surface roughness in general, an a second step of evaluating the granulometry of the abrasive material to be utilized.

(31) A method according to the invention may include two or more steps of selecting the granulometry to be utilized, and one or more steps of emitting the material with the selected granulometry. This enables the emission, in sequence or even contemporaneously, of materials having two or more different granulometries in order to further enhance cleaning effectiveness.

(32) In particular, a method according to the invention of cleaning surgical tools and accessories with a saline compound of bicarbonate is particularly effective with an abrasive material having a granulometry between 10 and 700 m.

(33) When the surgical instruments have surfaces with corrugations, cavities, depressions and areas of surface roughness having dimensions generally between 50 and 250 m, the saline compound containing sodium bicarbonate is of fine grade, that is, has a granulometry between 10 and 250 m.

(34) In a preferred embodiment, the compound containing sodium bicarbonate has a granulometry between 20 and 200 m.

(35) When the instruments to be cleaned have corrugations, cavities and areas of surface roughness with relevant dimensions larger than 250 m, the saline compound containing sodium bicarbonate is of large grade, that is, has a granulometry between 10 and 700 m.

(36) In one embodiment, the saline compound containing sodium bicarbonate has a granulometry between 70 and 600 m.

(37) In one embodiment, the saline compound containing sodium bicarbonate has a granulometry between 150 and 500 m.

(38) Therefore, a method according to the invention is particularly suited for washing surgical tools having surfaces of any kind.

(39) Device

(40) In order to perform a method of cleaning and sterilizing surgical tools according to the invention, a device is provided having a closed sanding booth shaped to house one or more instruments to be cleaned.

(41) A device according to the invention includes a system that emits an abrasive material into the booth and onto the instruments under pressure. The abrasive material includes that includes one or more saline compounds.

(42) The device further includes a system that regulates the ejection pressure of the abrasive material between 0.5 and 12 bars. Examples of pressure regulators include valves that automatically cuts off flow at a certain pressure, flowmeters, rotometers or mass flow controllers.

(43) In a preferred embodiment, a device according to the invention includes also a system that regulates the ejection pressure at preset values, for example between 0.5 and 3 bars to treat surgical instruments having plastic surfaces and between 1.5 and 8 bars to treat surgical instruments having metal surfaces.

(44) The device may further include a feeding system of the abrasive material, which includes a storage tank for the abrasive material and from which, through a conduit, an air and/or water flow aspires or pushes the abrasive material from the tank and carries it to an emission nozzle disposed within the booth.

(45) The abrasive material is emitted at high pressure from the nozzle into the booth for mechanical cleaning, such as sanding, onto the instruments to be cleaned.

(46) In a preferred embodiment, the tank is removable in order to feed each time a saline compound containing sodium bicarbonate having a desired granulometry according to the instruments to be cleaned.

(47) Alternatively, in one embodiment, the device may have two or more tanks, each containing the saline compound with the sodium bicarbonate having a determined granulometry. Each of those tanks is operatively coupled, or is selectively operatively coupled, to the emission nozzle, or to its own emission nozzle.

(48) In one embodiment, the device includes one or more units that automatically select the tank, from which the abrasive material to be emitted is taken. Such selection may include an alternative or contemporaneous selection from those two or more tanks, in order to provide for an alternative or contemporaneous emission of a material having different granulometries.

(49) While the invention has been described in connection with the above described embodiments, it is not intended to limit the scope of the invention to the particular forms set forth, but on the contrary, it is intended to cover such alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the scope of the invention.

(50) Further, the scope of the present invention fully encompasses other embodiments that may become obvious to those skilled in the art and the scope of the present invention is limited only by the appended claims.

(51) With reference to the foregoing description, the following claims are expressed.