Special requirements in UCV theatres

Graeme Hall FIHEEM, MIET, managing director of Brandon Medical, considers in detail the particular requirements and criteria for operating lights used in ultraclean ventilation (UCV) theatres, and explains how the recent establishment of a standard for testing of lighting’s suitability for such theatre environments will help designers and manufacturers, as well as those specifying UCV theatre illumination, going forward. 

Ultraclean ventilation (UCV) systems were originally developed in the UK to reduce infection rates during hip replacement surgery. The first artificial hips were developed by Prof. John Charnley, a famous British orthopaedic surgeon, who, having spent a period professionally at Manchester Royal Infirmary in the late 1940s (having been appointed a joint honorary assistant orthopaedic surgeon there in 1947) subsequently established a pioneering hip surgery centre at Wrightington Hospital in Lancashire. During this ‘pioneering’ period, having encountered a high incidence of infections during such surgery, Prof. Charnley traced the source of infections to airborne particles falling into the wound, most of which were skin cells from the surgeons and clinical staff in the theatres.

Prof. Charnley enlisted the help of a local specialist in clean air systems to develop the first ultraclean ventilation systems for surgery. Sir Hugh Howorth and his company developed the first systems to ‘drop’ clean filtered air down onto the patient, and create a flow from the patient and away past the clinical staff, thus sweeping any contamination away from the surgical site. The air is ‘scrubbed’ clean of bacteria and dust by HEPA filters, and chilled below the temperature of the operating theatre, to help it drop down vertically over the patient.