[Bacterial airborne dispersal during the drilling of infected bone (author's transl)]

The hazards of infection by bacterial airborne dispersal secondary to drilling bone in the surgical treatment of infection of the air spaces of the skull were assessed experimentally. This included estimation of the furthest distance that the cooling fluid, using coloured water, and the bone chips of a dry petrous temporal bone can be thrown, and the spread of the fine dust produced by the drilling using a staph. albus suspension as the rinsing fluid. The drops and bone chips were flung to a distance of about 90 cm in the working area around a cutting burr rotating at 80 000 r.p.m. The fine dust thrown off by cutting and diamond burrs and the infected fluid mist stays suspended in the air for hours and can be carried across the whole room by air currents. The surgeon and operating theatre personnel are therefore always at risk of infection. Preventive measures are discussed.