Health Care

Sterilization

The destroying of all forms of life, especially microorganisms, by heat, chemical, or other means.

National Library of MedicineMedical Subject Headings2026

Structured Summary

Abstract

The destroying of all forms of life, especially microorganisms, by heat, chemical, or other means.

MeSH Record

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Aspects Covered

11 allowable subheadings

Indexed with the subheadings classification, economics, ethics, history, instrumentation, legislation & jurisprudence, methods, organization & administration, standards, statistics & numerical data, trends.

MeSH Record

Indexing Annotation

of the environment, not sexual; differentiate from DISINFECTION: DISINFECTION renders matter free of pathogens, STERILIZATION destroys all microbes; if in doubt, use the word of the text

MeSH Hierarchy

Tree Number

  1. N06.850w.780.200.450w.850w

AMA Style

References

  1. National Library of Medicine. Sterilization. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). 2026. Unique ID D013242. http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/2026/D013242
  2. Sterilization. In: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_(microbiology)
  3. Sterilization. In: Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q191618