Surgical Wound Infections:
A Prospective Hospital Based Study
1367-1370
Correspondence
Abhijit K. Awari
Doctor’s Quarter No. 9,
Kesar SAL Medical College & Research Institute
Opposite Science City
Bhadaj, Ahmedabad, Gujarat - 380 060
Phone: 096875 96325.
E-mail: abhijit.awari@yahoo.com
A prospective study of 916 surgeries were conducted. All the wounds were examined for the presence of infection in all the 916 surgeries, out of which 840 normal surgeries and seventy six infected surgical wound infections were studied.
The overall infection rate was 8.29%. The surgical infection rate in the wounds following clean surgery (class I) was 3.4%, that in clean contaminated surgeries ( class II) was 7.77%, that in contaminated surgeries (class III) was 16.49% and that in dirty (class IV) surgeries was 24.67%.
In the present study, the rate of infection in the emergency surgeries was not significantly higher than that in the plannedand elective surgeries. The infection rate was seen to be the maximum when the duration of the pre-operative hospitalization was increased. There was a significant increase in the rate of infection as the duration of the surgeries increased. This study shows that the infection rate was higher in patent (9.98%) in whom prophylactic antibiotics were not given.
The infection rate was highest in post appendicectomy wounds and lowest in wounds following hydrocele surgeries.
The commonest isolates from the surgical wound infections was Staphylococcus aureus and E.coli, followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae.