Patient and staff safety is a top priority when considering what equipment to bring into your operating room. One way to provide protection is to implement a surgical smoke clearance system. Surgical smoke contains contaminants such as carcinogenic chemicals, bacteria, and viruses(1). Staff members exposed to these on a regular basis may suffer unnecessary consequences.
Most current smoke evacuation systems utilize filtration and recirculate or expel the filtered air. Although ULPA and HEPA filters remove most of the contaminants found in surgical smoke, they are not perfect. The only way to ensure your staff and patients are not exposed is to remove the contaminants entirely through a hospital’s central vacuum system. Current guidelines require all surgical suction outlets to be outside at least 25 feet away from any public access or air inlet(2). This ensures that the contaminants are completely removed, and you are not relying on imperfect smoke filters. The VISIMAX® Laparoscopic Smoke Clearance System can take advantage of your hospital’s central vacuum source to do just this.
VISIMAX® works by safely connecting your hospital central vacuum with the laparoscopic field through two trocars. A dial allows the surgeon to set the amount of automatic smoke clearance while a mechanism automatically shuts off the device whenever pneumo pressure drops too low. It is compatible with all common operating room configurations, easy to install, and disposable.
1. Karjalainen M, Kontunen A, Saari S, et al. The characterization of surgical smoke from various tissues and its implications for occupational safety. PLoS One. 2018;13(4):e0195274. Published 2018 Apr 12. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0195274
2. Minnesota Department of Health; Office of Emergency Preparedness; https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/ep/surge/infectious/airbornenegative.pdf
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