Surgical smoke posing dangerous risk to those in the operating room

Juul, cigarettes and cigars are all products we know generate harmful smoke.

But there's another smoke, far less common to the public, that's hurting hundreds of thousands of people every year.

"Eighty-five percent of surgeries performed in the U.S. are electro-surgery, and if you have electro-surgery, there's surgical smoke," explained Nick Meginnis, Brand Manager. "So, if you've ever seen any kind of medical TV Show or been in the operating room yourself, you may have seen a surgeon use a scalpel to open up the patient. Electro-surgery is high-heat or electrical current to cut or coagulate tissue. When you cut or coagulate tissue, the byproduct is smoke."

Here's a startling fact: Being in the operating room for a full day could expose you to the same amount of smoke plume as smoking more than a pack of cigarettes.

"The scary thing about surgical smoke is that -- take a mastectomy, for example, which is removal of the breast tissue," Meginnis said. "Typically, if a surgeon is removing breast tissue, typically cancer is involved. So if a surgeon is cutting or coagulating cancerous tissue, whatever is on that patient's skin or in the patient's blood stream can be transferred through the air."

Companies like Stryker are doing more to protect doctors, nurses and patients.

"Stryker is dedicated to making the preoperative space a safer place for clinicians to practice in and patients to receive care," Meginnis said. "We have a lot of safety products, one of which is the Stryker smoke evacuating pencil."

To learn more about surgical smoke,

has information on proper health and safety practices to keep you safe.