Surgical site infection prevention by local warming up before operation

Surgical site infection (SSI) accounts for 37% of US hospital infection and increase in morbidity and cost. The Preoperative planning and intra-operative techniques become important in preventing surgical site infection. The present work has been undertaken with an aim to assess the role and extent of warming up of surgical site just before clean operation to prevent surgical site infection. 400 patients referring to Imam Reza hospital- Tehran-Iran from 2009 to 2010 with indication of clean surgery for treatment of hernia, varicocele, varicose, thyroidectomy and mastectomy were the study cases. Patients were divided randomly into two groups of 200 each. The surgical site of patients belonging to group I was warmed up just 30 minutes before operation. For patients belonging to group II no preoperation interference was performed. The findings indicate a significant difference (P<0.05) in the rate of infection between the two groups. As a whole, 7.5% of patients belonging to group II showed SSI while 2% of patients of group I suffered surgical site infection. Warming up of surgical site just before operation may acts as a safe and inexpensive antimicrobial prophylaxis to prevent infection.

Infection, bacterial infection, surgery, surgical site infection, prevention.