[Report on a two-year experience with an ultrasterile operatory (author's transl)]

2,078 orthopaedic operations were carried out. No infections were observed at 640 hip-joint total endoprosthesis, 26 knee-joint endoprosthesis and 185 osteosynthesis. One primary infection happened in one case only, namely at an elbow-joint endoprosthesis. The compressed air installation, which drives the airturbines, was found to be the reason for the air not being germ-free what caused the infection. It is important that the turbines operate with germ-free air, and that the air recycling equipment is air-tight. The germ-free air of the horizontal displacement flow in an ultra-sterile operatory gives optimum ambient conditions for the operations, particularly when alloplastic interventions with big extraneous objects entail the risk of infections. After also many hours of operation, the air germination was extremely low and practically insignificant and cannot be obtained at such a low degree for conventionally air-conditioned operatories.