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Comment by tener | Hacker News Reader

Aren't surgery tools supposed to last years of use?

Yeah, isn't this what an autoclave is for?

Sterilizing surgical tools is extremely expensive, and not good enough. You can sterilize some tools, for some purposes, but usually that doesn’t remove all contaminants.

So surgical tools are instead produced for single time use, and after that recycled, to ensure they’re always sterile.

EDIT: For example, with scalpels, you can remove and replace the blade, and do exactly that after every use. Removing and replacing the blade looks like this: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-dc86caa627022bbfb7e6b4...

What? Can't you just throw them in an autoclave?

You can remove some contaminants in an autoclave, but others surprisingly survive, and would contaminate the next patient.

So stuff like scalpels, for example, is recycled after every single use.

Even such simple things as prions actually already require far more complicated autoclaves than you’d expect.

I would expect prions to be harder to sterilize than bacteria, actually. Prions aren't even alive.

They are much harder to sterilize, and autoclaves don't work. Ideally you'd dispose all tools exposed to prions, but if that's infeasible, the CDC recommends an autoclave in a bath of NaOH.

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cjd/infection-control.html

I would also expect that you want scalpels to be sharp as new on each use. The blade probably doesn't take too kindly to the sterilizing conditions.

Many surgical items are reused - for example scissors, and retractors. Surgeons may have their own set of tools that they continue to use.

Lower cost items are not reused (a scalpel, which might simply be a piece of plastic attached to a blade).

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