Reducing Surgical Site Infection with Negative-Pressure Wound Therapy After Open Abdominal Surgery: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Study

Abstract

Background and aims: Surgical site infection, in particular superficial incision infection, is a common type of complication following abdominal surgery. Negative-pressure wound therapy has been confirmed to reduce the incidence of surgical site infection in various surgeries, but there are few prospective randomized studies into its application to abdominal surgery.

Material and methods: A prospective randomized controlled study was conducted in which patients with abdominal surgery and open surgery were randomly divided into a negative-pressure wound therapy experimental group and a gauze-covering control group. Information about demographic data, type of surgery, surgical sites, incision treatment outcomes, surgical site infection factors, and follow-up was recorded.

Results: From May 2015 to December 2015, 71 patients were enrolled in this study, including 33 in the experimental group and 38 in the control group. There were 10 cases of incision complications, all superficial infections, with an incidence of 14.1%. The surgical site infection incidence was statistically different between the experimental and control groups (3.0% vs 23.7%, p = 0.031). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that incision length ⩾20 cm increased the surgical site infection incidence (odds ratio value of 15.576, p = 0.004) and that the application of negative-pressure wound therapy reduced the surgical site infection incidence (odds ratio value of 0.073, p = 0.029).

Conclusion: Negative-pressure wound therapy can reduce the incidence of surgical site infection in open abdominal surgery.

Keywords: Negative-pressure wound therapy; abdominal wound closure techniques; risk factors; surgical procedures; surgical wound infection; wound healing.