Our steam sterilizer aborted half-way through the cycle and we incubated the BI expecting the results to be positive, but the BI was negative. Is this a problem?
A:
No. The fact is, you should be reassured when the spores in a BI are killed. That’s because the concentration of spores in a BI provide a challenge greater than that encountered in a normal load. Hospital steam sterilization processes are based on the half cycle overkill method where the time required to kill the BIs is determined, then doubled to establish the final cycle exposure time. Hence, the final exposure time provides a safety factor.
As you will learn in the attached feature article by Dr. Sailaja Chandrapati, monitoring the sterilization process is not simply about measuring the cycle exposure time – it’s about measuring the ability to deliver sufficient lethality to kill the highly-resistant organisms within the BI. To learn more, read the full article.
