E. Pretorius, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pretoria 0002, Pretoria, South Africa, tel. +27 12 319 2533, fax +27 12 319 2240.
Part I of this article discusses examples for cycle types used in moist heat sterilization, parameter requirements for a standard cycle as defined by pharmacopeias, methods used to design sterilization cycles, and various approaches used to measure the efficiency of the sterilization process.
