Surgical fires put patients at higher risk than previously thought
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, November 14, 2007
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Though surgical fires are often seen as less dangerous than wrong-site surgeries, the occurrence of surgical fires appears to be more frequent than previously thought, reports The Boston Globe. New data out of Pennsylvania estimates that fires during surgery take place in one out of 87,000 surgeries. This equates to hundreds of fires out of the estimated 50 million surgeries that take place nationally.
In the 1980s, efforts aimed at preventing surgical fires waned after doctors began using less flammable gas during surgeries for anesthesia. However, other hazards such as alcohol-based skin cleaners and other surgical tools posed new fire threats. Fire prevention during surgery was not as widely taught.
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