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Smoke from laser surgery: Is there a health hazard?
Author(s) -
Nezhat Camran,
Winer Wendy K.,
Nezhat Farr,
Nezhat Ceana,
Forrest Deborah,
Reeves William G.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
lasers in surgery and medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1096-9101
pISSN - 0196-8092
DOI - 10.1002/lsm.1900070414
Subject(s) - smoke , plume , carbon dioxide laser , medicine , range (aeronautics) , laser , health hazard , endometriosis , surgery , laser surgery , materials science , chemistry , pathology , optics , meteorology , environmental health , composite material , physics , organic chemistry
The composition of plume produced during carbon dioxide laser endoscopic treatment for endometriosis was examined to determine whether it represented a hazard to the surgical staff. A total of 32 plume samples were collected from 17 women undergoing laser laparoscopic treatment for endometriosis and/or adhesions. The smoke was found to consist of particles having a median aerodynamic diameter of 0.31 μm with a range of 0.10–0.80 μm. The size range has two consequences: (1) using a human red blood cell as a model for all cells, it can be stated with greater than 99.9999% certainty that no cell‐size particles, including cancer cells, are present in the plume; (2) particles in this size range are too small to be effectively filtered by currently available surgical masks.