I read that transplant doctors worry about infection because of immunosupressant drugs used on the patients.

I have not heard of a nozzle of purified air directed at the surgery site and the surgery theater generally to reduce germ load to 1/100 or 1/1000th the usual amount.

To make sure it works they could do "surgery" on agar gel culture blobs and then develop a system with much less colony growth.
-- beanangel, May 19 2018

Environmental Controls in Operating Theaters https://www.ncbi.nl...gov/pubmed/12090793
From 2002 [lurch, May 21 2018]

My fluid dynamics imaginations would indicate to me that there would be eddies and flows would be that would be hard compute for. Even a heavy sterile gas would slop out creating inflows.

Maybe, [beanangel] like you indicated, a self reconstituting, clear gel medium that can be worked through. Might even hold back bleeding. Just peel it out when finished.
-- wjt, May 19 2018


A high-volume airflow into the surgical area will tend to dry things out substantially. Since a transplant operation (at least, the part on the immunosuppressed patient) is mostly installation, the doc is spending most of his time doing microsuturing - and that's not much fun when all the delicate vessels are getting dry & crackly, and the sutures are waving in the breeze.
-- lurch, May 20 2018


I agree with [wjt] - eddies would make things worse.

In my lab, I regularly pour agar plates. I normally do it on the open bench, and I get maybe 1 plate in 20 with a fungal contaminant. Bacterial contamination is rare, because the agar normally contains either one or two antibiotics; but fungal spores are a reasonable proxy for bacteria. If I turn on the aircon (which just circulates the air within the room), my contamination rate goes up noticeably.

The air in operating theatres is generally almost sterile anyway. Surgical-site infections tend to be picked up once the patient leaves the OR.

Regretfully (all the more so because you managed to write "in the air"), therefore, [-].
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 20 2018


The surgery could be performed at very low temperatures (to reduce evaporative drying) and near-vacuum, which would remove the air which transports the pathogens.
-- 8th of 7, May 20 2018


That's not a bad idea. Best of all, the freeze-drying of patients would allow for much longer, more leisurely operations.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 20 2018


We understand that such a freeze-drying process (well, the freezing part, anyway) was commonplace in the waiting rooms of many public hospitals and clinics in the U.K. during your 20th century.

We are, of course, relying on hearsay for this, as there were very few - if any - survivors. They tend to be the ones who escaped before receiving any attention from the medics.
-- 8th of 7, May 20 2018


Although there would be eddies of air, I thought the zero fungi/bacteria per 100 m^3 would be less than the ambient bacteria/fungi. With zero contaminants the eddies in the fresh air would not matter.

I think of it as a gentle exhalation of ultrapure air near the surgery sit. saying "nozzle" did not really communicate that. The gentle exhalation version might skip the drying effect, as could modifying the humidity.
-- beanangel, May 21 2018


Bacteria don't spend much time floating around - they're generally sitting on surfaces, and the last thing you want to do is stir them up.

If you really want a sterile environment, close all the doors, windows and vents, turn off all heating and cooling, have everyone hold their breath, and wait about 10min. All airborne bacteria will have settled out.

As I mentioned, the air in an operating theatre is to all intents sterile anyway. Surgical infections tend to be acquired after the surgery. Another source of infection is the patient's own microbiome, which can do unexpected things after you slice someone open.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 21 2018


If you're going with "gentle", then Baked, see Link.

Generally a couple of inches of water of positive pressure, so that any leaks in the OR are leaking out, not in; and enough airflow that there's 12 to 20 complete air changes per hour. The duct filters are placed in the ceiling, with outflow vents low on the walls - so everything travels downwards, as they are naturally inclined to do.
-- lurch, May 21 2018


Bun from me for the educational value.
-- RayfordSteele, May 22 2018



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