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Fewer operating room personnel during sterile prep significantly reduced airborne bacterial contamination and species linked to SSIs.  

A randomized control trial (RCT) study was published in June 2025 in the issue of Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control to evaluate how operating room (OR) personnel count influenced air quality and where surgical site infections (SSI) and antimicrobial resistance were global threats to patient safety.   

Researchers examined how the number of OR personnel influenced bacterial air contamination during sterile surgical preparation, identified bacterial species and their antibiotic susceptibility, and described SSIs with their causative organisms.  

They compared 2 groups: 1 with 2 individuals and another with 5 individuals preparing sterile surgical goods and collected bacterial samples on aerobic and anaerobic plates and measured growth in colony-forming units (CFU). All the isolates tested were SSI-related types for susceptibility to 8 antibiotics and analyzed the data using the Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test, or Fisher’s exact test.  

The results showed that data from 69 open-heart surgeries and 414 plates revealed a median CFU count of 2 (IQR: 2) with 2 personnel, compared to a median CFU of 5 (IQR: 5) with 5 personnel (P< 0.001). A total of 272 CFUs included 45 bacterial species—38 species in the control group and 21 in the intervention group. Cutibacterium acnes was the most common isolate (82/272, 30%), followed by Staphylococcus epidermidis (36/272, 13%). Among the S. epidermidis isolates, 11 (31%) showed drug resistance, including 3 multidrug-resistant strains, 1 control group individual developed an SSI from Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus lugdunensis, which were not detected during preparation and 1 intervention group individual developed an SSI due to C. acnes, Corynebacterium kroppenstedtii, and S. epidermidis, with C. acnes and S. epidermidis identified during preparation.  

Investigators concluded that reducing the number of personnel in the OR during sterile goods preparation significantly lowered the bacterial contamination. 

Source: aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-025-01589-4