An ethylene oxide gas sterilizer surgical instrument case.

Abstract Presented is an effective, small, portable instrument carrier which effectively doubles as a gas sterilizer for the instrument carried within its chambers. The complexity and expense of the equipment carried within the box (about $2000 in value) clearly justify the “one-instrument, one-sterilizer” concept. The surgeon himself can maintain the instruments and keep the entire unit in his office or desk when not in use. Complex devices so housed easily become part of the itinerant surgeon's equipment that he carries from one hospital to another. Similar carriers could be developed for a wide variety of instruments, for example, heart valves, pacemakers, microsurgical tools, operating microscope heads, electrodes, fiber optic scopes, and the like.