Laminar Airflow Systems: Issues Surrounding Their Effectiveness

Abstract

he operating room team must take all possible steps, including structural T improvements in operating room design, to remove extraneous harmful factors during surgery. When changes are as expensive as the wholesale installation of laminar clean airflow systems, however, O R team members must consider if the changes will reduce wound infection rates. The American College of Surgeons Committee on the Operating Room Environment published statements on OR air issues in 1972, 1973, 1976, and 1977.' For the most part, these four statements are as valid today as when they were originally written. In the intervening decade, there have been a number of poorly controlled studies and a few good singleand multi-institutional clinical trials that were done with as much control as possible. When we participated in planning a new hospital and when we prepared program presentations, we reviewed the literature and our own experiences. Even the most recent studies did not