Surgical fire prevention

The oxygen enriched environment of surgical procedures creates the risk of fire.

As many as 600 operating room fires occur each year in the United States despite a decline in the use of flammable anaesthetics. To ensure the safety of dental surgical procedures a new study investigated the use of suction to prevent combustion.

A study in the journal Anesthesia Progress replicated potential surgical fire conditions with a mechanical model in an oxygen-enriched environment. The internal body cavities of chickens were used to simulate a patient’s oral cavity, and an electrosurgical unit was used as the ignition source. The study tested the hypothesis that high volume dental suction might draw off enough oxygen to delay or inhibit the onset of combustion.

Ventilation of oxygen in patient oral cavities or evacuation by high-volume suction may help decrease the risk of fires. The current study conducted 41 trials to test its hypothesis; 20 employed suction, and the rest did not.