Multimodal strategy in surgical site infections control and prevention in orthopaedic patients : a 10-year retrospective observational study at a Polish hospital
Introduction: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are among the most common healthcare-associated infections. They are
associated with longer post-operative hospital stays, additional surgical procedures, risk of treatment in intensive
care units and higher mortality.
Material and methods: SSIs were detected in patients hospitalized in a 40-bed orthopaedics ward in 2009-2018.
The total number of study patients was 15,678. The results were divided into two 5-year periods before and after
the introduction of the SSI prevention plan. The study was conducted as part of a national Healthcare-Associated
Infections Surveillance Programme, following the methodology recommended by the HAI-Net, European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control Program (ECDC).
Results: One hundred sixty eight SSIs were detected in total, including 163 deep SSIs (SSI-D). The total SSI
incidence rate was 1.1%, but in hip prosthesis: 1.2%, in knee prosthesis: 1.3%, for open reduction of fracture (FX):
1.3%, for close reduction of fracture (CR): 1.5, and 0.8% for other procedures. 64% of SSI-D cases required
rehospitalisation. A significantly reduction in incidence was found only after fracture reductions: FX and CR,
respectively 2.1% vs. 0.7% (OR 3.1 95%CI 1.4–6.6, p < 0.01) and 2.1 vs. 0.8% (OR 2.4 95%CI 1.0–5.9, p < 0.05). SSI-Ds
were usually caused by Gram-positive cocci, specially Staphylococcus aureus, 74 (45.7%); Enterobacteriaceae bacillis
accounted for 14.1% and Gram-negative non-fermenting rods for 8.5%.
Conclusions: The implemented SSI prevention plan demonstrated a significant decrease from 2.1 to 0.7% in SSI-D
incidence only in fracture reductions, without changes in epidemiology SSI incidence rates in other procedures.
Depending on the epidemiological situation in the ward, it is worthwhile to surveillance of SSIs associated to
different types of orthopaedic surgery to assess the risks of SSI and take preventive measure
