Commentary On: “Surgical Smoke – A Health Hazard in the Operating Theatre: A Study to Quantify Exposure and a Survey of the Use of Smoke Extractor Systems in UK Plastic Surgery Units”

through an intriguing preclinical study. The investigators quantified the mass of tissue converted into a smoke plume over a period of 2 months by determining the duration of diathermy use and additionally attempted to determine the prevalence of surgical smoke evacuators in plastic surgery units in the United Kingdom. They utilised a novel method of determining the number of device activations and the total duration of activation of devices. This was achieved by accessing built-in service functions of the device. It gave very precise measurements of cutting and coagulation. However, it should be noted that the investigators did not evaluate desiccation and fulguration functions. Also, many plastic surgeons use bipolar electrocautery, which has not been evaluated in this paper.