Article
A retrospective study comparing the incidence of wound infections following spinal surgery in adults: sealing the operation site with InteguSeal® versus sealing with standard plastic foil
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Published: | May 20, 2009 |
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Objective: Postoperative surgical wound infections have become a rare but still severe incident in spinal surgery. We conducted a retrospective study to compare the rate of wound infections following spinal surgery after sealing the operation site with either standard plastic foil or InteguSeal®.
Methods: Starting from September 2007, at our department only InteguSeal® was used for sealing the operation site after standard disinfection in spinal surgery. Starting from then, 618 spinal cases were operated in our clinic until September 2008. As comparison group, in the previous one-year period (September 2006–September 2007) 806 spinal cases were operated in our department with standard plastic foil used after standard disinfection.
Results: In the period 09/2007–09/2008, 6 cases of wound infections occurred in our clinic following spinal surgery (incidence 0.97% of all cases), in the comparison group, observing the previous year, 10 cases occurred (incidence 1.24% of all cases). In almost all cases, typical skin bacteria caused the infection, mostly staphylococcus aureus (75%) including 2 cases of multi-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA/ORSA). In only one case, pseudomonas aeruginosa caused the infection, and in 2 cases, staphylococcus aureus was the dominant bacterium, but other bacteria (proteus mirabilis, coagulase-negative streptococcus were related to the infection as well.
Conclusions: Considering the small number of postoperative wound infections following spinal surgery in both years, there is no significant difference between the incidence of wound infections using InteguSeal® or standard plastic foil in our study.