JPH0349470B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a medical container and a method for folding the same, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a medical container and a method for folding the same. After pulling a pair of side walls that make up the container and which are in close contact with each other in the direction of separating them from each other, the ends of the container are overlapped and pressed, thereby maintaining the flat state and keeping fluid inside the container. If it is folded down, when sterilizing gas is injected, the side walls bulge out without coming into close contact with each other, and the sterilizing gas can be spread everywhere, and therefore, the container can be sterilized reliably. The present invention relates to a folded container and a method for folding the same, which makes it possible to easily handle the container after the sterilization process has been completed. [Background of the Invention] Conventional medical containers are used for filling predetermined amounts of drugs and medical solutions. In this case, the medical container is formed by pultruding a flexible member, a relatively flexible plastic member into a cylindrical shape, and closing the ends by heat sealing etc., which is particularly widely used. has been done. The flexible plastic container is extremely easy to handle and is difficult to damage, and when storing the container, it can be folded to minimize the space it occupies. Because it can be done. Incidentally, the inside of the plastic medical container is sterilized during its manufacturing process. At that time, the medical container is placed in a closed tank with both side walls in close contact with each other, or with the container in this state bent, and is subjected to, for example, ethylene oxide gas sterilization (hereinafter referred to as EOG sterilization), or Treatments such as autoclave sterilization are performed. In fact, the EOG sterilization, as mentioned above,
After a mixed gas of ethylene oxide gas and water vapor is sealed in a sealed tank and heated for a predetermined period of time, the mixed gas in the tank is discharged and air is introduced into the tank. On the other hand, autoclave sterilization involves placing a container in a sealed tank and heating, pressurizing, and humidifying the container to perform sterilization using the heat, pressure, and steam. However, if the medical container falls over with both sides of the container in close contact with each other as described above, the inside of the medical container may not be reliably sterilized when EOG sterilization is attempted. That is, even if the sealed tank containing the medical container is filled with a mixed gas of ethylene oxide gas and water vapor, the both side walls of the medical container are in close contact with each other, The mixed gas may not be able to sufficiently penetrate into the container through the opening defined in the container. That is, the mixed gas only penetrates into the interior of the medical container depending on the gas permeability of the material forming the medical container. As a result, there is a concern that the interior of the medical container may not be sufficiently and reliably sterilized. Furthermore, as mentioned above, if sterilization is performed with both side walls of the medical container in close contact with each other,
The both side walls are welded to each other due to the heat during the sterilization process. Therefore, in this case, when filling the medical container with a drug or drug solution, it becomes difficult to separate the both side walls from each other, making it difficult to fill the drug or drug solution, etc. The problem is that the containers are difficult to handle. [Object of the Invention] The present invention has been made in order to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages.When folding a container formed of a flexible member, the side wall portion that constitutes and is in close contact with the container is folded. Once pulled in the direction of separation from each other, both ends of the container are pressed so as to overlap, thereby obtaining a flat folded container, and at the same time, during processing such as sterilization, the desired fluid can be sufficiently contained inside. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a medical container and its folding method that can be easily introduced, require less storage space, and can be reliably sterilized. shall be. [Means for achieving the object] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an upper edge, a lower edge, and a flat first side wall section provided between the upper edge and the lower edge. and a second side wall part, the first side wall part and the second side wall part each form a bulge part projecting in a direction away from each other, and further, the upper end edge and the lower end edge are connected to the second side wall part. It is characterized in that the first and second side walls are overlapped with each other via the side wall portions. Furthermore, the present invention has an upper edge and a lower edge,
A container having a first flat side wall portion and a second flat side wall portion provided between the upper end edge and the lower end edge,
the first and second side walls by bringing the upper end edge and the lower end edge closer together so as to overlap and separating the first side wall part and the second side wall part to opposite sides in a direction orthogonal to the overlapping direction; It is characterized in that a bulge is formed in the portion, and the two side wall portions are folded. [Embodiments] Next, preferred embodiments of the container according to the present invention in relation to its folding method will be listed and explained in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. 1 to 3, reference numeral 10 indicates a medical container according to the present invention, and the medical container 10 is made of a flexible plastic member. The medical container 10 consists of a first side wall part 12 and a second side wall part 14, which are liquid-tightly joined by heat sealing or the like over substantially the entire circumference at the outer edge thereof. In this case, the heat-sealed upper edge 15 and lower edge 17 are
Holes 15a, 17a, and 17b for hanging and fixing are bored, and the central part of one end side of the medical container 10 communicates with the inside of the medical container 10 to introduce a drug solution thereto. A tube 18 is attached defining an opening 16 for the purpose. The material forming the medical container 10 is not particularly limited as long as it is a flexible member with high flexibility, but examples include soft vinyl chloride, vinyl acetate-ethylene copolymer, polypropylene, silicone rubber, etc. , one material is selected. The medical container according to the present invention is basically constructed as described above, and next, a method for folding the container will be specifically explained. First, the first side wall part 12 and the second side wall part 14 of the medical container 10, which maintain a flat state in the state shown in FIG. 1, are pulled in a direction to separate them from each other (see FIG. 2). That is, it is pulled in a direction perpendicular to the flattening direction, and as a result, the close contact between the first side wall portion 12 and the second side wall portion 14 is temporarily released. Next, the end portion of the medical container 10 to which the tube body 18 is attached, that is, the lower end edge 17 and the upper end edge 15 are pressed so as to overlap. As a result, triangular bulges 12a and 14a are defined in the first side wall portion 12 and the second side wall portion 14, respectively (see FIG. 3). As a result, the medical container 10 folded into a flat state is obtained. In this case, according to the folding method according to the present invention, the medical container 1
0 is folded. Therefore, for example, this
When EOG sterilization is to be performed, pressurized ethylene oxide gas enters the inside of the bulges 12a and 14b of the medical container 10 from the opening 16 of the tube body 18, so that Ethylene oxide gas is sufficiently distributed, and the medical container 1
0 sterilization process is performed reliably. Furthermore, it is possible to avoid a situation in which the first side wall portion 12 and the second side wall portion 14 are welded together due to heat during the sterilization process. In addition, after finishing the EOG sterilization process,
Also when discharging the ethylene oxide gas,
The ethylene oxide gas is discharged from the opening 16, so that the discharge operation can be performed reliably. This was confirmed by the experiments described below. That is, a plurality of medical containers 10 using the folding method according to the present invention and a plurality of other medical containers that are not folded for comparison are prepared, filter paper coated with bacteria is inserted inside these containers, and then a filter paper coated with bacteria is inserted. The medical container 10 and other medical containers were stored separately in a sealed tank and EOG sterilization was performed. In addition,
When performing the EOG sterilization process, a mixed gas of ethylene oxide gas and carbon dioxide gas mixed at a ratio of 1:4 was selected as the gas injected into the tank. After heating the inside of each tank housing the medical container 10 and other medical containers and keeping it at 60°C and humidifying it, it is filled with the mixed gas and the state is maintained at 60°C.
It lasted for about a minute. That is, the medical container 10 and other medical containers were allowed to react with the mixed gas for 60 minutes. At that time, the pressure inside the tank is always 1.2Kg/cm ²
I kept it. Next, after removing the gas from the tank,
The sterilization process was completed by introducing air. Next, after completing the EOG sterilization process, the filter papers loaded in the medical container 10 and other medical containers are placed in a medium pre-stored in a clean test tube, and heated at a temperature of approximately 37°C. It was cultured for 7 days. In addition, 6 ml of culture medium is stored in each of the plurality of clean test tubes, and it has been confirmed in advance that the clean test tubes are sterile after being sterilized by autoclaving and left for two days. As a result of conducting the above experiments three times, it was found that all medical containers 10 using the folding method according to the present invention were reliably sterilized, while other medical containers 10 that were not folded Regarding medical containers, it was found that each medical container was not sterilized. Furthermore, considering that in actual sterilization processing, the reaction time of the medical container 10 with the gas is approximately six times as long as the reaction time of the gas in this experiment, the medical container 10
0, it is possible to perform the sterilization process extremely reliably. Next, after the mixed gas used for the EOG sterilization is discharged, the mixed gas remaining in the medical container 10 and other medical containers, the gas mixture remaining in the medical container 10 and the other medical containers, and the material forming the medical container 10 and other medical containers. An experiment was conducted to measure the amount of mixed gas remaining in the In this experiment, after sterilizing the medical container 10 and other medical containers under the same conditions as the EOG sterilization in the experiment described above, the mixed gas in the tank was discharged and the mixture was sterilized at a temperature of 50°C. It was stored for 40 hours and then left at room temperature for 3 days. Then, 1 ml of air in the medical container 10 and other medical containers was sampled, and the amount of ethylene oxide gas present in the 1 ml of air was measured. On the other hand, the medical container 10 and other medical containers placed in the tank are taken out, the material constituting it is cut into a predetermined size, the weight is measured, and the material is placed in a sterilized bottle. I added the material. Next, an ethanol solution containing propylene oxide was poured into the sterilized bottle and heated to 60°C.
After being left in an oven for 1 hour, the extract was cooled, and the amount of ethylene oxide gas present in the resulting extract was measured. Table 1 shows the results of each of the above measurements.

[Table] As can be easily understood from Table 1, the amount of ethylene oxide gas remaining in the material constituting the medical container 10 is greater than the amount of ethylene oxide gas remaining in the materials constituting other medical containers. The results showed that the amount was significantly lower than the amount. Therefore, when the container folding method according to the present invention is adopted, the EOG
It has been found that the mixed gas used during sterilization can be easily discharged. As a result of the above experiments, when the container folding method according to the present invention is carried out, the medical container 10 can be reliably sterilized, and the mixed gas used for sterilization can be easily discharged. It became clear that. [Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, when folding a medical container formed of a flexible member, a pair of side wall portions of the medical container are pulled in a direction to separate them from each other. After releasing the close contact between the pair of side walls, both ends of the medical container are overlapped. Therefore, when sterilizing a medical container using this folding method, the sterilization mixture gas etc. can easily spread throughout the interior of the medical container from the opening, and the sterilization process can be easily carried out. This has the advantage that it can be carried out reliably. moreover,
Since the mixed gas for sterilization reaches the inside of the medical container through the opening of the medical container, if the material forming the medical container is a flexible member, it must be a material with poor gas permeability. This has the effect of expanding the selection range of materials. Furthermore, it is easy to discharge the mixed gas that performs the sterilizing action, and as mentioned above, since the pair of side walls constituting the medical container are not in close contact with each other, the container is exposed to heat during the sterilization process. There is also an effect that the container can be easily handled, such as by easily filling the medical container with medicines, medicinal solutions, etc., without the side walls constituting the container being welded to each other. Although the present invention has been described above with reference to preferred embodiments, the present invention is not limited to these embodiments. For example, the shape of the container may be elliptical or circular. It goes without saying that various improvements and changes in design can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 and 2 are explanatory diagrams of the folding method according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a folded container according to the present invention. 10... Medical container, 12, 14... Side wall part,
16...opening, 18...pipe body.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. The device has an upper edge, a lower edge, and a flat first side wall and a second side wall provided between the upper and lower edges, the first side wall and the second side wall portion each form a bulge portion projecting in a direction away from each other, and further, the upper end edge and the lower end edge are overlapped with each other via the first and second side wall portions. A medical container featuring: 2. A container having an upper edge and a lower edge, and a flat first side wall portion and a second side wall portion provided between the upper edge and the lower edge, wherein the upper edge and the lower edge are A bulging portion is formed in the first and second side wall portions by bringing the first side wall portion and the second side wall portion closer to each other so as to overlap each other, and separating the first side wall portion and the second side wall portion to opposite sides in a direction perpendicular to the superimposing direction. A method for folding a medical container, characterized in that the two side walls are folded.