From “Laminar Flow Cleanliness” to “Whole-Domain Isothermal Control”

Traditional laminar flow operating rooms mainly focus on air cleanliness, but they overlook a key issue: heat dissipated by surgical equipment and heat generated by personnel can cause temperature fluctuations of 2–3°C in the surgical wound area. At the same time, low-temperature air-conditioning supply air blowing directly onto the patient increases the risk of intraoperative hypothermia and complications.

The design starting point of the “isothermal operating room” is to address the inherent defects of the traditional technical route—large supply air temperature differentials and uneven spatial temperature—and to expand the focus of environmental control from a single concern with cleanliness to placing equal emphasis on both “cleanliness” and “whole-domain temperature uniformity.”

Three Core Technical Principles

This technical system achieves its goals mainly through three original technologies:

Building envelope bears the heating and cooling load: This changes the traditional approach in which air-conditioning supply air bears the entire temperature regulation task. Constant-temperature systems are built into the walls and ceilings to uniformly regulate room temperature through radiant heat exchange; the air-conditioning system is only responsible for supplying clean fresh air, and the supply air temperature is essentially the same as the room temperature. This fundamentally eliminates the temperature differential and discomfort caused by “cold air blowing directly.”

Independent and precise temperature and humidity control: The control of temperature and humidity is completely decoupled and handled by two independent systems. This solves the traditional air-conditioning problem of “coupled temperature and humidity control,” in which it is difficult to meet both requirements simultaneously, and can stably maintain high-precision temperature control of ±0.5°C and the standard surgical humidity range of 45%–55%.

Dynamic thermal load compensation algorithm: During surgery, personnel entering and leaving and equipment starting and stopping can cause instantaneous thermal fluctuations. The system monitors these in real time through a sensor network and uses algorithms to make dynamic adjustments within tens of seconds, quickly compensating for thermal loads and maintaining a whole-domain isothermal state.

Core Differences from Traditional Operating Rooms

Based on the above principles, it brings significant improvements in several key indicators:

· Temperature uniformity: The core goal is to achieve stable control of the temperature difference across the entire surgical domain within ±0.5°C, far superior to the 2–3°C fluctuation range under traditional modes.
· Supply air experience: The supply air temperature is equal to the room temperature, eliminating the discomfort of direct cold air blowing and improving patient comfort during surgery.
· Environmental indicators: It can simultaneously and stably meet the requirements of high-precision temperature control and the standard humidity range, rather than sacrificing one for the other.

Summary

The “isothermal operating room” represents a technical approach that reconstructs operating room environmental control from the underlying logic. It no longer relies on “cold air cooling,” but instead uses radiant temperature regulation, temperature-humidity decoupling, and dynamic algorithms to strive to create a “whole-domain isothermal” environment with constant, uniform temperature and no draft sensation for surgery, thereby reducing the risk of patient hypothermia and improving surgical safety.