Impact of intra-abdominal insufflation pressure on gas leakage occurring during laparoscopy

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic led to recommendations aimed at minimizing the risk of gas leaks at laparoscopy. As this has continuing relevance including regarding operating room pollution, we empirically quantified carbon dioxide (CO₂) leak jet velocity (important for particle propulsion) occurring with different instruments inserted into differing trocars repeated across a range of intra-abdominal pressures (IAPs) and modern insufflators in an experimental model.

Laparoscopic gas plume leak velocity (metres/second) was computationally enumerated from schlieren optical flow videography on a porcine cadaveric laparoscopic model with IAPs of 4-5, 7-8, 12-15 and 24-25 mmHg (repeated with 5 different insufflators) during simulated operative use of laparoscopic clip appliers, scissors, energy device, camera and staplers as well as Veres needle (positive control) and trocar obturator (negative control) in fresh 5 mm and 12 mm ports.

Close-fitting solid instruments (i.e. cameras and obturators) demonstrated slower gas leak velocities in both the 5 mm and 12 mm ports (p = 0.02 and less than 0.001) when compared to slimmer instruments, however, hollow instrument designs were seen to defy this pattern with the endoscopic linear stapler visibly inducing multiple rapid jests even when compared to similarly sized clip appliers (p = 0.03). However, on a per device basis the operating instrumentation displayed plume speeds which did not vary significantly when challenged with varying post size, IAP and a range of insufflators.

In general, surgeon's selection of instrument, port or pressure does not usefully mitigate trocar CO₂ leak velocity. Instead better trocar design is needed, helped by a fuller understanding of trocar valve mechanics via computational fluid dynamics informed by relevant surgical modelling.