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US 7,452,504 B2Granted
Sterilization/disinfection cycle control
AssigneeEthicon, Inc.
InventorsSu-Syin S. Wu, James P. Kohler, Harold R. Williams
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A sterilizer includes a vacuum chamber, a source of vaporizable sterilant, a vacuum pump, and a control system. The control system is programmed to take one or more data inputs regarding the nature of the load, such as lumen length and diameter, and determine one or more parameters of the sterilization cycle based upon the inputs.
Claims16
A method of sterilizing a load of instruments in a sterilizer comprising the steps of:
- entering data regarding the nature of the load into a control system of the sterilizer;
- placing the load into a vacuum chamber in the sterilizer;
- based upon the data regarding the nature of the load entered into the control system, determining one or more parameters of the cycle before running the sterilizer;
- running the sterilizer in accordance with the determined one or more parameters, including the step of running the sterilizer comprising:
- drawing a vacuum upon the vacuum chamber with a vacuum pump;
- admitting a sterilant into the vacuum chamber, the sterilant being substantially in its vapor phase within the vacuum chamber, and contacting the load with the sterilant.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.