Surgical smoke and ultrafine particles
Electrocautery, laser tissue ablation, and ultrasonic scalpel tissue dissection all generate a 'surgical smoke' containing ultrafine (<100 nm) and accumulation mode particles (<1 um). Epidemiological and toxicological studies have shown that exposure to particulate air pollution is associated with adverse cardiovascular and respiratory health effects.
Methods: To measure the amount of generated particles in 'surgical smoke' during different surgical procedures and to quantify the exposure to ultrafine particles for operation room personnel acondensation particle counter (CPC, model 3007, TSI Inc.) was applied.
Results: Electro-cauterization and argon plasma tissue coagulation induced the production of very high number concentration (> 100000 cm-^3) of particles in the diameter range of 10 nm to 1 um.
The peak concentration was confined to the immediate local surrounding of the production side. In the presence of an efficient air conditioning system the increment and decrement of ultrafine particle occurrence was a matter of seconds, with accumulation of lower particle number concentrations in the operation room for only a few minutes.
Conclusions: Our investigation showed a short term very high exposure to ultrafine particles for surgeons and close assisting operating personnel - alternating with longer periods of low exposure.
Author: Irene Bruske-Hohlfeld, Gerhard Preissler, Karl-Walter Jauch, Mike Pitz, Dennis Nowak, Annette Peters and Heinz-Erich Wichmann
Credits/Source: Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 2008, 3:31
Published on: 2008-12-03
Copyright by the authors listed above - made available via BioMedCentral (Open Access). Please
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