Resumen

VIALAT SOTO, Vivian; MARCHENA BEQUER, Juan José; HERNANDEZ ALFONSO, Hermes  y  DE LA ROSA RODRIGUEZ, Randolph. Infection of the surgical sites: a one-year study . Rev Cubana Pediatr [online]. 2008, vol.80, n.1. ISSN 0034-7531.

INTRODUCTION. The patient that undergoes surgery is exposed to diverse complications during the postoperative period. The Center for Disease Control (CDC, Atlanta, U.S.A.) redifined the problem of postoperative infections and proposed the term "infection of the surgical sites" to refer to the third most reported cause of nosocomial infection. The objective of this study was to identify the behaviour of the infections of the surgical sites and their interrelation to the risk factors in children operated on in our surgery service during 2006. METHODS. A study on the incidence of infection of the surgical sites and the influence of the risk factors on children that were operated on at the surgery service of the Pediatric Teaching Hospital of Centro Habana in 2006 was conducted. The study group was composed of the 44 patients that presented postoperative infection of the total of 1158 patients that underwent surgery in this period. Different variables were studied and the data obtained from them were analyzed. RESULTS. The 44 patients with infection of the surgical sites accounted for an infection rate of 3.79 %. The sepsis of the surgical wound was the most frequent complication (93.2 %). In 25.0 % of the infected cases, perioperative antimicrobial prophylaxis had been used. The infection predominated in the patients that underwent emergency surgery (75.0 %) and in the dirty surgeries (43.2 %). The highest number of postoperative infections (31; 70.5 %) was registered in the patients operated on of acute appendicitis. Only 7 infected patients had a hospital stay of more than 9 days (15.9 %), and there were only 6 readmissions: 4 patients with sepsis of deep wounds and 3 children with intraperitoneal abscesses secondary to acute appendicitis with generalized peritonitis. CONCLUSIONS. The infection of the surgical sites in children is still a health problem, on increasing the operative morbidity, the duration of the length of hospital stay and its costs.

Palabras clave : Infections in pediatric surgery; infection of the surgical sites; postoperative infections.

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