Effect of Incise Drape on Contamination Rate of Surgical Wound during Surgical Procedures of Lumbar Spine

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the incise drape (ID) on surgical wound bacterial contamination during lumbar spine surgical procedures in treatment group (with ID) and control group (without ID).

The present study was conducted on 88 patients who were a candidate for lumbar spine surgery. The patients were randomly assigned to one of the two groups, treatment and control. The ID was only used in the treatment group. The surgical wound sampling for bacterial culture was done in two steps, immediately after surgical incision (IASI) and immediately prior to the surgical wound closure (IPSWC). The samples were then sent to the laboratory.

The mean total bacterial count of the surgical wound in the stage IASI was not significantly different between treatment and control groups (0.09 vs. 0.02, P = 0.31). However, this means in the stage IPSWC in treatment group was significantly more than the control group (18.6 vs. 0.41, P = 0.04). The frequency distribution of Staphylococcus aureus (25% vs. 3%, P = 0.02) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (36.4% vs. 9.1%, P = 0.002) was significantly higher in the treatment group compared with control group in the stage IPSWC.

The results suggest that the use of ID is unable to reduce surgical wound bacterial contamination in clean lumbar spine surgery. Therefore, based on the results obtained in our study, the application of ID is not recommended as an essential action for the prevention of surgical wound contamination.