Resumen

TORRES, Sebastián et al. TOPOGRAPHICAL AND STRUCTURAL EVALUATION OF DIATHERMY PENCILS EMPLOYED ON AESTHETIC SURGERY SUBJECTED TO FOUR REPROCESSING CYCLES USING THE EIA/CES "QUALY" APPROACH. Rev. ing. biomed. [online]. 2014, vol.8, n.16, pp.13-18. ISSN 1909-9762.

Diathermy pencils are one of the most employed medical devices around the world, this condition increases its probability to be reprocessing in patients; diathermy pencil has different parts (cord, tip, handgrip, current cables), which are composed of different kind of materials. In order to identify the medical device behavior is necessary to characterize all of those materials in the instrument. An exploration to determinate topographic surface defects and structural movements in each material was performed, with the intention of evaluated the reuse cycles effects on the medical device. The experiment was performing using the EIA/CES "QUALY" approach [1]. The study concludes that four reprocessing cycles induce some changes that are not statistically representative. Surface defects were detected in the cord; also an aggressive superficial waste after four reprocessing cycles in the tip was observed. We do not observe structural changes in the polymeric chain of the cord.

Palabras clave : Reprocessing Medical Devices (RUDM); Diathermy Pencils; Optical Microscopy; Spectroscopy; Wear.

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