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Introduction
In this article, we review sterilization practices in tattoo equipment manufacturing.  We need to protect ourselves and our customers from exposure to infectious material (blood, body fluids, contaminants, etc).  Since I'm a physician, I deal with a wide range of high-risk infections on a daily basis.  Sometimes we know our patients (or tattoo/piercing customers) have infectious diseases; sometimes we don't.  Our presumption, of course, is that every potential exposure represents a risk.  This is a big topic, so in part one of this installment, we'll start by looking at the sterilization of tattoo needles.  In the following installments, we'll discuss cross-contamination and specific infections.

Tattoo Needle Safety
Let's start by looking at tattoo needles.  The greatest risk in tattooing is the re-use of tattoo needles.  Virtually every professional tattoo shop uses single-use disposable tattoo needles, significantly reducing the risk of spreading infections from one customer to the next.  This is the single greatest argument why one should never get a tattoo from anyone but a professional tattoo artist.  Non-professional tattoo artists are more likely to re-use needles, lack training in cross-contamination, lack expensive sterilization equipment, and have not had training in blood borne pathogens.  Imperial Tattoo Supply is committed to preventing the diversion of tattoo equipment to unlicensed, untrained tattoo artists for this very reason.

Overview of Sterilization Techniques
There are many ways to sterilize medical products.  I present only a few of the techniques most commonly used in the medical and tattoo industries.

Types of Tattoo Needle Sterilization:

1) Ethylene Oxide Sterilization


Ethylene Oxide (C2H4O) depicted at left, is a highly reactive chemical gas that is commonly used to sterilize medical equipment.  It is highly effective at destroying bacteria, viruses, fungus (including spores), and protozoa.  In short, it kills everything.  It is particularly useful in sterilizing equipment including many types of plastics that wouldn't be able to stand high heat-related sterilization processes.  Ethylene Oxide is toxic and explosive, so special facilities are required in order to safely handle and dispose of the gas after treatment. 

2) Gamma Irradiation

  Irradiation of materials with high-energy electromagnetic radiation is another commonly used technique to sterilize medical products including tattoo needles.  This type of radiation induces breaks in the DNA of microorganisms, destroying them.  This radioactive source for this process can be from an ionizing radiation source such as a radioactive element (example: Cobalt-60).  There was a great deal of public concern excited in the United States regarding proposals to irradiate foods using gamma irradiation that resulted in a lower adoption rate in this country than abroad.

3) Heat Sterilization

Steam sterilizers (autoclaves).  They are effective at destroying nearly all bacteria (with rare exceptions), viruses, and fungi and spores.  Steam sterilizers can't be used with most plastics as they will melt.  Tattoo artists who choose to sterilize their own hand built tattoo needles usually sterilize their needles in this fashion, but it is not efficient for large numbers of products obviously.  Re-sterilization of medical instruments (hemostats, scalpel handles, stainless steel tubes/tips/grips) are often achieved by the use of heat sterilizers.

Imperial Tattoo Supply uses Ethylene Oxide (EO) gas to sterilize its tattoo needles.  Look for our proof of sterilization on our needle backing!