Bacterial Contamination in a Modern Operating Suite: 1) Effect of Ventilation on Airborne Bacteria and Transfer of Airborne Particles; LOCATION = Europe;

The effect of ventilation on airborne contamination was studied in a new operating suite containing operating rooms with conventional ventilation (17-20 ach) and operating rooms with zonal ventilation, where the air change in the central part of the room was about 80 ach. The efficacy of the ventilation was first examined with gas tracer experiments and foundsatisfactory. Experiments using potassium iodide particles showed the transfer between adjacent rooms in the suite to be less than .001% with closed doors and from 1% to .025% when the doors were opened once a minute. The transfer between two adjacent operating rooms was calculated to be about .0001%. There is thus little risk of spread of airborne infection between operating rooms.