Repurchases of Common Shares	6 Months Ended
Repurchases of Common Shares	Sep. 30, 2012
Notes To Financial Statements [Abstract]
Schedule of Treasury Stock by Class [Text Block]	Repurchases of Common Shares During the first half of fiscal 2013, we repurchased 46,949 of our common shares as part of our Board authorized repurchase program and obtained 46,076 of our common shares in connection with stock based compensation award programs. At September 30, 2012, $116,888 of STERIS common shares remained authorized for repurchase pursuant to the most recent Board approved repurchase authorization (the March 2008 Board Authorization). Also, 11,616,847 common shares were held in treasury at September 30, 2012.

Tabular disclosure of an entity's treasury stock, including the average cost per share, carrying basis for each class of treasury stock, description of share repurchase program authorized by an entity's board of directors, the number of shares repurchased, the cost of the shares repurchased, the remaining maximum dollar value of shares available for repurchase under the program, the treatment of the purchase price in excess of the current market value, number of shares held for each class of treasury stock, and other information necessary to a fair presentation.

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