There is a commercial that’s been playing touting either hip or knee replacement surgery. The OR staff are in encapsulated “space suits”. Yet, I see other videos of brain surgery where the staff is in more traditional OR attire. What determines what kind of outfit the staff wears? Those space suits look like they’d be difficult to work in.
Poking around online, it seems that they’re more concerned about infections when they’re opening/drilling/implanting into bone. One site also mentioned that because the appliances (like the new hip) don’t have their own immune system, they have to be extra careful of that as well.
One person also mentioned marrow spraying out during an amputation, but in that case the space suit seemed more to protect the doctor.
OTOH, it seems that for one reason or another many doctors don’t like them and don’t/refuse to use them.
Google Orthopedic space suit, there’s lots of info out there.
There’s also the chance you saw a commercial that was, at least in part, paid by Stryker. They’re a medical device/equipment company. The space suit is one of their products.
As Joey P said, the idea behind the exotic suits is twofold: minimize contamination of the operative field from the surgeon’s dander, saliva, clothing lint, etc., and also to minimize the contamination of the surgeon by aerosolized bone, blood, and other tissue. There aren’t many OR devices that put as much spray into the air as a bone saw or the other carpentry tools of the orthopods. Orthopedists are particularly worried about wound contamination because infections of implants are very difficult to treat, so you really want to keep the skin flakes out of the cement you’re using to glue the hip joint in with.
The OR space suits may actually be worse at protecting the patient from infection than regular OR gowns, depending upon how they are vented. Some systems send air in at the head and blow it out at the hem of the gown, but this warmed air can then rise and billow over the operating field. Some positive-pressure suits may leak at the wrists, blowing right into the field. Older systems pulled air through a hose to an area away from the table and may have been better at preventing contamination.
Thanks. Ignorance fought.