gms | German Medical Science

60th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)
Joint Meeting with the Benelux countries and Bulgaria

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

24 - 27 May 2009, Münster

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

Meeting Abstract

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  • D. Meinhard - Klinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf
  • D. Hänggi - Klinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf
  • H.-J. Steiger - Klinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 60. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC), Joint Meeting mit den Benelux-Ländern und Bulgarien. Münster, 24.-27.05.2009. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2009. DocP10-09

doi: 10.3205/09dgnc361, urn:nbn:de:0183-09dgnc3618

Published: May 20, 2009

© 2009 Meinhard et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

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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.