What is Low Temperature Sterilization?

   Most of people think that sterilization must undergo by heat or high temperature prepossess, but since 1950, there has been an increase in medical devices and instruments which are made of materials that require low-temperature sterilization. But is low-temperature sterilization useful? And will it really kill the bacteria? This must be a common question for many people.

   Sterilization destroys all microorganisms on the surface of an tool or in a fluid to prevent disease transmission associated with the use of that item.
Ethylene(ETO) has been widely used as a low-temperature sensitive medical devices and supplies in healthcare institutions in the US. For decades, ETO was mixed with high amount of CFC agent as stabilizer. As on 1995 CFC was declared a highly contaminant and environmentally dangerous agent, new options for sterilization were researched. Many new sterilization process were developed: 100%ETO, ETO mixed with HCFC,plasma, ozone...

Studies show that these new low temperature technologies must be improved for reaching the ideal low temperature sterilization , as many of them lack of efficacy by, in example, destroying bacteria when they are in serum.

   Low-temperature sterilization should have high efficacy, rapid activity, strong penetrability, which able to penetrate common medical-device packaging materials and penetrate into the interior of device lumens.  As these goals aren't reached yet on 100%. is low-temperature sterilization safe? Answer is : if the procedures and the correct protocol are used, low-temperature sterilization can be effective, but he complete sterilization may be difficult to achieve, so new technologies must be further developed to increase it's efficacy.