In October 2024, after Vanderbilt Health notified an unspecified number of patients that they may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C during endoscopy procedures, patients and healthcare workers across the country took notice. Many asked whether the current standard of care for endoscope decontamination, high-level disinfection (HLD), is adequate to ensure…
More than half of all medical devices in the U.S. are sterilized using ethylene oxide (EO) gas. Instruments made with plastic, like syringes, surgical gloves, and IV tubes, cannot withstand the high temperatures used by other sterilization methods to achieve terminal sterility. Ethylene oxide, however, achieves terminal sterility at low temperatures and with zero damage….
Ethylene Oxide – Flexible Chamber Technology is Andersen’s proprietary and award-winning sterilization process. It is shared by the Andersen Anprolene and EOGas 4 models.
“EO sterilization has continued to advance since the ’60s and ’70s, and while there are still risks, updates to the delivery technology, EO’s materials compatibility, and penetration capabilities mean there are rewards to the modality that you should consider,” said Seth Hendee of Healthmark Industries, Inc. in his article Ethylene Oxide Risk vs Reward.
HAW RIVER, N.C. – Andersen Sterilizers and its sister company, contract sterilization specialist Andersen Scientific, were awarded the very first master file in the FDA’s 510(k) Ethylene Oxide (EO) Sterility Change Master File Pilot Program. “This master file award from the FDA makes it official, switching to Andersen from a traditional sterilization method just got…
John Small, owner and president of Biovision Veterinary Endoscopy, LLC, was kind enough to sit down with us at VMX 2023 to talk about how Andersen sterilizers provide quick ROI and sterilize with zero damage – two key features that make his product affordable for veterinarians.
All chemicals capable of achieving terminal sterility are inherently dangerous requiring exposure monitoring, training and engineered redundancies designed to offer the highest level of operator protection. Claiming your sterilant is “safe” and “non-toxic” does a serious disservice to users who may, then, not treat the sterilant with the respect it deserves. Our aim in this post is not to compare H2O2 and EO (both are potentially dangerous and must be used with care). Instead, we hope to demonstrate widespread instances of operator injury in hopes of encouraging fair comparison and careful use.
Directly following the premiere of Andersen’s “Beyond the Tour” episode, our sterilization experts & the Beyond Clean team participated in a live Q&A session with viewers.
Some of the questions addressed were:
-Isn’t EO more dangerous than other sterilization systems?
-I thought ethylene oxide was going to be banned.
-Are you suggesting ethylene oxide will replace hydrogen peroxide?
Read the highlights of the Q & A or watch the entire conversation.