Manufacture of medical instruments

The medical tools or the surgical instruments are usually made up of special type of stainless steel which is specifically used for the manufacture of these tools only. This is known as the ‘surgical stainless steel’ which is used in medical applications. The stainless steel tools are made out of several components that are chromium, nickel and molybdenum. The chromium gives the instruments scratch and corrosion resistance, nickel provides the smooth and polished surface of the tools and molybdenum provides the hardness and strength to the metals that are used for their manufacture. The two main variations in the manufacture of the stainless steel surgical instrumentsare the ‘martensitic’ and ‘austenitic’steels. The former refers to the very hard form of the steel crystalline structure. The amount of the martensitic should be well administered because a large amount of it makes the steel hard and brittle and too small amount may make it soft. On the other hand austenitic is an iron alloying element. It basically makes the metal hard and makes it smooth at a particular temperature specified for the instrument.

There are different grades of the steel that are selected by the experts of theinstrumentswhich are defined by different standards in a chart. The grades of the stainless steels are defined by A, B, C, D and up to‘P’ standards. The grades A, B and C are basically used extensively for the manufacture of surgical instruments. Some of the instruments require very effective and highly durable type of the steel and some can be less expensive compared to the others. The best type of the steel is employed in the manufacture of the surgical tools because of their requirement of the precision and accuracy.There are different types of the surgical instruments used for different purposes such as for diagnostic purpose; the medical imaging machines are required. Similarly, different therapies require infusion pumps, medical lasers and LASIK surgical machines. The life support machines are the most important medical machines that include medical ventilators, anesthetic machines, heart lung machines and dialysis machines.

The medical monitors are also employed for noting down the analysis of the working order of the different parts of the body and of the organs. These monitors include EEG, ECG and blood pressure gauges etc. The surgical instrumentsinclude the corrosion resistance and the scratch resistance tests before the proper dispatching of the tools. The ISO products standards for the surgical and dental tools specifydifferent tests for checking the corrosion resistance of the products. These tests are based upon the methods of sterilization commonly encountered by these products. The material used for the manufacture must meet the requirement of the ISO standard including the resistance and thermal exposure. The sterilization practice must be performed before reusing the instrument based standard procedure developed by the ISO. These include steam sterilizer and prior to the sterilization the instruments should be soaked in the disinfectants containing 16% of the sodium chloride.