Sterilisation

Sterilisation means that an object is freed of all microorganisms capable of reproducing – including resistant spores. This goes beyond disinfection, which only significantly reduces germs.

Why is it so important in podiatry?

During treatment, instruments come into contact with skin, nails and sometimes tiny bleeds. To ensure that no pathogens – such as fungi, wart viruses or hepatitis viruses – are transmitted, all instruments are reprocessed after every treatment.

The process

• cleaning and disinfecting the instruments
• packing in sterile packaging
• steam sterilisation in our class B autoclave under pressure at high temperature
• documentation of every batch – so every reprocessing cycle is traceable

In our practice we use a class B autoclave from MELAG – the Vacuclave® 118 S. Class B is the highest class for small steam sterilisers (standard EN 13060): thanks to a repeated pre-vacuum, the steam penetrates completely even into cavities and packaged instruments.

How we put this into practice is described in our news article Hygiene is our top priority.