Surgical Fire in the United States: 2000-2020

Despite fire prevention protocols and perioperative staff training, surgical fires continue to cause patient harm, disability, and death.

We identified surgical fires that were reported to the Food and Drug Administration's Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database between 2000 and 2020 that resulted in patient or surgical personnel harm. Quantitative and descriptive content analyses were performed on free-text responses to identify contributing factors of surgical fire patient and personnel harm events.

We identified 565 surgical fire events resulting in patient or surgical personnel harm over a 20-year study period (median 25 events/year; range, 8-53). Surgical fires were significantly more likely to occur during upper aerodigestive tract (unadjusted odds ratio 15.96; 95% confidence interval, 11.93-21.34) and head and neck (unadjusted odds ratio 5.47; confidence interval 4.14-7.22) procedures compared with abdomen and pelvis procedures. Upper aerodigestive tract and head and neck procedures had the highest incidence of life-threatening injury (41% and 21%, respectively). An electrosurgical device was the ignition source in 82% of events. Content analysis revealed 7 common categories identified as root causes of surgical fires: preparation of surgical site (n = 55, 29%); device malfunction (n = 51, 26%), surgical accident (n = 47, 24%), medical judgement (n = 44 reports, 23%), equipment care and handling (n = 18, 9%), patient factors (n = 10, 5%), and communication (n = 3, 2%).

Surgical fires resulting in harm to patient and surgical personnel continue to occur. The common themes identified in this study will prepare and empower surgeons and surgical personnel to prevent surgical fires in the future.