8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
W
hat do you see in this photo-
graph: surgical smoke,
right? This photo accompa-
nied an article in last month's issue
about mandatory smoke evacuation
legislation. But a reader wrote to let us
know he saw flames of fire, not rings
of smoke. Where we saw plume, he
saw doom.
"I was shocked to see the source of
ignition that close to a nasal cannula
presumably supplying oxygen to a
patient," says anesthesiologist Steven J. Sperring, MD, medical director
of the Centennial Surgery Center in Nashville, Tenn. "This is a potential-
ly disastrous situation and one which would be difficult to defend in the
case of a surgical airway fire."
We can only hope that the cannula wasn't delivering oxygen when
this picture was taken. As Dr. Sperring said, it would literally be like
playing with fire for oxygen to flow freely while, just a few centime-
ters away, the Bovie was activated.
"I'm extremely wary of a source of ignition so close to an oxygen
source," he says when we spoke by phone.
Dr. Sperring might be more sensitive than most to the dangers of sur-
gical fires. In 2008, a year before Dr. Sperring's arrival at Centennial,
records show that iconic country music singer Tanya Tucker suffered
an airway fire while undergoing a facial peel with laser at the surgery
center. Apparently, the oxygen, a fire hazard in the presence of lasers,
A Reminder About Surgical Airway Fires
Is a source of ignition hidden in this photograph of smoke inhalation?
Editor's Page
Dan O'Connor
• FLINTING WITH DISASTER Is this nasal cannula
delivering oxygen to the patient while the Bovie is
activated?
