The Incidence and Risk Factors of Surgical Wound Infection after Clean Spinal Surgeries: a Prospective Cohort Study

Introduction & Post-operative surgical site wound infection (SSWI) is one of the most common complications after spine surgeries. To detect the risk factors for such a complication, studies with large numbers of patients and high quality data-gathering and analysis are required. In this study, we prospectively included 987 patients who underwent operation for different pathologies over a three-year period (2010-2013). Among these patients, 27 (2.7%) developed infection in the post-operative period. Multi-variant analysis indicated the factors associated with increased risk of post-operative infection as: trauma as the main etiology of damage in trauma cases, past-history of diabetes and smoking, patients being bed ridden in the peri-operative period, blood sugar levels above 120 mg/dl during the treatment period, increased length of incision, and increased hospital stay. Considering the preventable nature of most of the causes, it seems possible to reduce the chance of infection by controlling these factors.