Cleaners can harm plastic surfaces over time

Because some cleaners can harm plastic surfaces over time, the use of some cleaning products could harm medical devices, according to an article on the Outpatient Surgery website.

Different cleaners are compatible with different plastics, so there's no single cleaner or process that's safe for all medical devices.

For instance, stress cracking occurs when the repeated use of incompatible chemical agents degrades the integrity of plastics. 

"Any medical device that has a plastic component is susceptible," Jaime Schlorff, senior project officer, health devices group, for ECRI, said in the article. "There are different kinds of plastics, and different cleaners are compatible with different kinds of plastics."

Read the article.