What are the most common reasons for sterilization failure using a heat sterilizer?

Common reasons for sterilization failure using a heat sterilizer:

• Inadequate precleaning of instruments
• Improper maintenance of equipment
• Cycle time too short or temperature too low
• Overloading or improper loading of sterilizer chamber
• Incompatible packaging material
• Interruption of sterilization cycle to add or remove an item 

The most frequent cause of sterilization failure is human error.