For more than a decade, surgery guidelines on hair removal in the US, UK and Australia have been informed by research led by Professor Judith Tanner of the Skin Integrity research Centre. 

The guidelines affect millions of surgeries every year, helping to reduce the risk of patient infections.  

Before Judith’s research, hair surrounding surgical incision sites was routinely removed prior to surgery. This was in order to keep the site clean, make suturing easier and enable dressings to adhere more easily. Hair removal was encouraged in hospital policy and it was most commonly carried out prior to hospital admission or on surgical wards using a razor. 

The first systematic review

 In 2006, Professor Tanner led the first systematic review of preoperative hair removal. The review recommended that hair shouldn’t be routinely removed. If it’s essential to remove hair, this shouldn’t be done with razors, as these cause the most infections. Instead, it should be carried out using clippers or depilatory cream. 

The review is updated every few years to include new studies, with the most recent published in 2016. It has been highly influential worldwide and is cited in the following guidelines: 

• The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
• The Surgical Care Improvement Project: One of six interventions which forms a package of care sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid in collaboration with the American Hospital Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Joint Commission (2006-2010)
• NICE guidelines (2008) in the UK and the Department of Health’s High Impact Interventions (2011)
• National guidelines for surgical practice in Australia