The International and European standards for radiation sterilization require evidence of the effectiveness of a minimum sterilization dose of 25 kGy but do not provide detailed guidance on how this evidence can be generated. An approach, designated VD
max, has recently been described and computer evaluated to provide safe and unambiguous substantiation of a 25 kGy sterilization dose. The approach has been further developed into a practical method, which has been subjected to field evaluations at three manufacturing facilities which produce different types of medical devices. The three facilities each used a different overall evaluation strategy: Facility A used VD
max for quarterly dose audits; Facility B compared VD
max and Method 1 in side-by-side parallel experiments; and Facility C, a new facility at start-up, used VD
max for initial substantiation of 25 kGy and subsequent quarterly dose audits. A common element at all three facilities was the use of 10 product units for irradiation in the verification dose experiment.
The field evaluations of the VDmax method were successful at all three facilities; they included many different types of medical devices/product families with a wide range of average bioburden and sample item portion values used in the verification dose experiments. Overall, around 500 verification dose experiments were performed and no failures were observed. In the side-by-side parallel experiments, the outcomes of the VDmax experiments were consistent with the outcomes observed with Method 1.
The VDmax approach has been extended to sterilization doses >25 and <25 kGy; verification doses have been derived for sterilization doses of 15, 20, 30, and 35 kGy. Widespread application of the VDmax method for doses other than 25 kGy must await controlled field evaluations and the development of appropriate specifications/standards. 相似文献