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Laminar airflow, size of laminar airflow ceiling demonstrate no impact on surigical site infection rates
Breier AC. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2011. doi: 10.1086/662182.
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The use of laminar airflow and the size of the laminar airflow ceiling have no association with lower infection risks in hip and knee prosthesis procedures, according to this study from German researchers.
The authors performed a cohort study, examining data from hip and knee prosthesis procedures performed in hospitals that were part of the German national nosocomial infection surveillance system. They compared data from those hospitals which used laminar airflow to data from those hospitals which did not. In cases where laminar airflow was present, the researchers made note of the size of the laminar airflow ceiling. Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were considered the study’s endpoints.
In all, the cohort spanned from July 2004 to June 2009 and included 33,463 elective hip prosthesis procedures performed as treatment for arthrosis (HIP-A) in 48 hospitals, 7,749 urgent hip prosthesis procedures performed as treatment for hip fracture (HIP-F) in 41 hospitals, and 20,554 knee prosthesis (KPRO) procedures performed in 38 hospitals.
According to the study abstract, the authors found an overall severe SSI rate of 0.74 per 100 procedures for HIP-A, 2.39 for HIP-F and 0.63 for KPRO, with laminar airflow and size of laminar airflow ceiling displaying no association with lower infection risks.
“The data demonstrate consistency and reproducibility with the results from earlier registry studies,” the authors wrote. “Neither [laminar airflow] nor ceiling size had an impact on severe SSI rates.”