Guidelines for Classification of Medical Devices - CE Marking (CE Mark) for Medical Devices

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Guidelines
for Classification of
Medical Devices

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Depending on its Intended Purpose, a medical device may be classified as Class I (including Is & Im), Class IIa, IIb and III, with Class III covering the highest risk products. The higher the classification the greater the level of assessment required. All Class Is, Im, IIa, IIb and III medical devices require the intervention of third party: the so-called Notified Body.

how long the device is intended to be in continuous use
whether or not the device is invasive or surgically invasive,
whether the device is implantable or active
whether or not the device contains a substance, which in its own right is considered to be a medicinal substance and has action ancillary to that of the device.

The classification rules are set out in Annex IX of the directive. This annex includes definitions of the terminology used in the classification rules.

CONTENTS

It is not feasible economically nor justifiable in practice to subject all medical devices to the most rigorous conformity assessment procedures available. A graduated system of control is more appropriate. In such a system, the level of control corresponds to the level of potential hazard inherent in the type of device concerned. A medical device classification system is therefore needed, in order to channel medical devices into the proper conformity assessment route.

In order to ensure that conformity assessment under the Medical Device Directive functions effectively from January 1995, manufacturers should be able to know as early as possible in which class their product is. Identification of the class of each individual type of device by a committee procedure would have taken too long to achieve this goal. It was therefore decided to set up a system of classification rules within the directive, so that each manufacturer could classify its own devices.

A simple set of classification rules based on technical features of medical devices existing now and in the future is impossible, because of the vast number and the changing nature of variables involved. The human body, however, is a relatively unchanging element of the equation. The European legislator established therefore a classification concept which is essentially based on potential hazards related to the use and possible failure of devices taking account of technology used and of health policy considerations. This approach in turn allows the use of a small set of criteria that can be combined in various ways: duration of contact with the body, degree of invasiveness and local vs. systemic effect.

It is recognized that although the existing rules will adequately classify the vast majority of existing devices, a small number of difficult cases may arise. Such cases may in particular include the determination of the borderline between two classes. In addition there may be devices that cannot be classified by the existing rules because of their unusual nature or situations where the classification would result in the wrong level of conformity assessment in light of the hazard represented by the device.

Graphical Summary
medical devices classification guidance chart
for initial identification of probable device class

Please click the following links to learn more about every CE-Marking-related European Union Directive, Guidelines to Directives, Frameworks of implementation of Directives, and Agreements on Mutual Recognition of conformity assessment between European Union and other countries such as USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel:-