The real incidence of percutaneous injuries in the operating room--a prospective study.

Despite the frequent exposure of operating room personnel to blood and other body fluids and the obvious risk of occupational transmission of HIV infection, the real incidence of injuries after needle sticks or cuts in the operating room has not been well investigated. Every injury occurring in the operating room during one thousand consecutive elective and emergency procedures was studied and the risk for acquiring an HIV infection was calculated. There were 50 injuries during 761 elective procedures (6.6%) and 23 injuries during 239 emergency operations (9.6%). There was one single injury during 91 minimally invasive endoscopical procedures (1.1%). The surgeon was the person most frequently injured (3.5%). The injury rate of the scrub nurse varied between 1.4% and 2.8% according to the surgeon's experience. The operating room personnel is at risk for an occupational transmission of blood born pathogens. If the seroprevalence of HIV in surgical patients is estimated at 0.4% the calculated probability for a surgeon to acquire HIV infection over a 30-year career amounts to 0.3%.