Hacker News Reader

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

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).

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com