Zoned vertical ultraclean operating room ventilation - A novel concept making long side walls unnecessary

We evaluated a novel concept of High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA)-filtered vertical Laminar Air Flow (LAF) for operating room ventilation, designed to be used without side-walls. The LAF-unit has a central zone with an airflow of 0.4 m/s and a peripheral zone with an airflow of 0.2 m/s. The design provides an exponential downflow of air resembling an upside-down trumpet mouth and it was claimed to prevent entrainment of peripheral contaminated air. The unit was evaluated with regard to elimination of particles with focus on bacteria-carrying particles (colony-forming units = cfu) during rigidly standardized sham operations. Three different lengths of walls/enclosures (short-ending 2.0 m, medium 1.0 m and long 0.2 m above the floor) were tested. It provided a high degree of bacteriological cleanliness (0.05-4 cfu/m(3) of air and 7-64 cfu/m(2)/h surface contamination) and its efficiency was proved to be independent of the length of the enclosures. We conclude that the novel zoned ultraclean vertical LAF unit is versatile, as it allows for omitting long side-walls, without compromising bacteriological safety.