Care and sterilization of urological endoscopic instruments

Abstract

Introduction: The cleaning and maintenance of urological endoscopic equipment are important for patient care. Increasing number of endourological interventions and inadequate number of instruments to be sterilized before the ongoing procedures make it necessary to perform effective-faster decontamination. Most rigid and flexible endoscopes are fragile as well as costly, thereby necessitating appropriate cleaning and storage. As most of the urological endoscopes are accepted to be semi-critical item, they are decontaminated mostly by gas sterilization or high-level disinfection. Ethylene oxide is the preferred agent for sterilization and glutaraldehyde for disinfection. Also care must be taken in the storage of the sterilized items before the next use. In this article you will find information about the basic principles of decontamination and type of it.