ArticleAntimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE2026
Characterization of aerosols generated during suspected aerosol-generating procedures in healthcare settings.
Article in Antimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To measure aerosol generation during various medical procedures that are potentially aerosol generating and determine whether these aerosols contain viral and/or bacterial pathogens that may pose a risk to healthcare personnel. Design: Observational. Setting: Tertiary care academic hospital. Patients: Convenience sample of adult patients undergoing one of the following procedures: extubation, bronchoscopy, mechanical ventilation, noninvasive ventilation, suctioning, nebulized medication administration (NMA), sputum induction, nasopharyngeal swab, or tracheostomy change. Methods: Four aerosol characterization instruments measured aerosol characteristics (particle mass, number, size); average baseline and procedure measurements were compared to identify changes in aerosolized particles associated with each type of procedure. SKC BioSamplers were used for viral and bacterial pathogen recovery. Clinical data were reviewed to examine patient characteristics that might impact pathogen recovery. Results: Among 93 sampled procedures, differences between baseline versus procedure measurements were only notable for NMA and sputum induction. Smaller increases in some particle measurements were observed for the single extubation sample. None of the 248 BioSampler specimens were positive for a respiratory virus, even though for 39 procedures, the patient had a recent clinical specimen that was positive for a respiratory virus. Thirty-two samples (13%) had positive bacterial cultures, all of which represented common skin/environmental contaminants or upper respiratory microbiota. Conclusions: In this study, significant aerosol generation was only observed during NMA and sputum induction. No viral pathogens and minimal bacteria were recovered from these medically generated aerosols. These data suggest that some procedures that are considered "aerosol-generating" may pose little infectious risk to healthcare personnel.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.