Various orthopaedic surgical procedures involve the use of a number of orthopaedic instruments, including orthopaedic trials, for example. For example, during a typical total knee arthroplasty (TKA) tibial trials, such as tibial trial trays and tibial trial inserts, are used to assist a surgeon in preparing the tibial surface for implantation of the tibial portion of the artificial knee. A surgeon often uses a tibial insert trial to determine the tibial implant size and to ensure a proper alignment and tibial component thickness prior to implanting the tibial components themselves, for example.
Certain types of orthopaedic instruments such as saw blades, for example, are made of metal, but others, such as trials for example are oftentimes formed from molded polymers. Many such orthopaedic instruments are cleaned and sterilized after use in a particular orthopaedic surgical procedure and then reused in subsequent surgical procedures. In a typical cleaning or sterilization process, the tools may be autoclaved. In such a process, the reusable orthopaedic tools are placed in sterilization trays for cleaning and sterilization.