1.1 Macroscopically visible droplets
Macroscopically visible droplet spread was assessed in six studies, all
of which used florescent tracers to map droplet
spread13-18. All of these studies demonstrated that
use of a high-speed drill aerosolised droplets outside of the nasal
cavity.13-18 No detectable droplet spread was detected
in two studies considering use of non-powered “cold”
instrumentation,13,14 and one assessing utilisation of
an ultrasonic aspirator (UST-2001; Stryker Co.,
USA).14
Both Sharma et al. (2020)14 and Leong et al.
(2021)15 found that microdebrider use on cadaveric
nasal mucosa had the propensity to generate extranasal droplets seen on
examination under UV light. Contradictory results were found by other
groups though with Workman et al. (2020a)13 and Jones
et al. (2020)16, working in similar cadaveric
settings, noting that microdebrider application to nasal mucosa did not
produce detectable droplets.