Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Oct;175(1):443-451.
doi: 10.1007/s11060-025-05123-9. Epub 2025 Jun 16.

Patient nutritional status is associated with surgical site infections in meningioma patients undergoing craniotomy for tumor resection

Sachiv Chakravarti #  1   2 , Linda Tang #  2 , Harshal A Shah  3 , Arjit Singh  2 , Yuncong Mao  2 , Jacob Gould  2 , Emre Derin  2 , Ritvik Pulya  2 , Esther Wu  2 , Raj Patel  2 , Sreyas Kanaparti  2 , Adrian E Jimenez  4 , A Karim Ahmed  2 , Christopher Jackson  2 , Chetan Bettegowda  2 , Gary Gallia  2 , Jon Weingart  2 , Debraj Mukherjee  5
Affiliations

Patient nutritional status is associated with surgical site infections in meningioma patients undergoing craniotomy for tumor resection

Sachiv Chakravarti et al. J Neurooncol. 2025 Oct.

Abstract

Introduction: Surgical site infections (SSIs) represent a significant burden to patients and healthcare systems. We sought to identify risk factors associated with post-operative SSIs for patients undergoing surgery for the resection of an intracranial meningioma.

Methods: The authors retrospectively reviewed records of meningioma patients who had undergone surgical resection at a single institution between January 2005 and December 2020. Demographics, clinical characteristics, and preoperative nutrition indices were collected through manual chart review. Scalp incisions were categorized as linear/curvilinear, reverse question mark, trapdoor or frontotemporal. The Mann-Whitney U and Fisher exact tests were used for bivariate analyses of continuous variables and categorical variables respectively. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with SSI.

Results: A total of 304 meningioma cases were identified, 15 (4.9%) of which were diagnosed with a postoperative SSI. Patients in the SSI group were significantly more likely to have a non-skull base meningioma (80% vs. 46.4%, p = 0.01), gross total resection (GTR) of tumor (93.3% vs. 67.8%, p = 0.04), and previous diagnosis of diabetes mellitus (DM) (40% vs. 15.2%, p = 0.02). Patients in the SSI group also had a significantly higher average Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) (2.8 ± 2.3 vs. 1.7 ± 2.2, p = 0.03) and a significantly lower nutritional risk index (NRI) (97.8 ± 4.9 vs. 103.9 ± 7.8, p < 0.01). On multivariate analysis, decreasing NRI score (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.84-0.98, p = 0.02) is independently associated with development of an SSI.

Conclusions: Results from this study indicate that preoperative nutritional status is a significant risk factor for SSI development in meningioma patients. These findings may be used to drive risk stratification efforts for this vulnerable patient population.

Keywords: Meningioma; Nutrition; Postoperative complication; Surgical site infection.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: CB is a consultant for Bionaut Labs, Haystack Oncology and Privo Technologies. CB is a co-founder of Belay Diagnostics and OrisDx.

References

    1. Zimlichman E, Henderson D, Tamir O et al (2013) Health care-associated infections: a meta-analysis of costs and financial impact on the US health care system. JAMA Intern Med 173(22):2039–2046. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.9763 - DOI
    1. Carroll E, Lewis A (2019) Prevention of surgical site infections after brain surgery: the prehistoric period to the present. Neurosurg Focus Aug 1(2):E2. https://doi.org/10.3171/2019.5.FOCUS19250 - DOI
    1. Ravikumar V, Ho AL, Pendhakar AV, Sussman ES, Kwong-Hon Chow K, Li G (2017) The use of vancomycin powder for surgical prophylaxis following craniotomy. Neurosurgery 80(5):754–758. https://doi.org/10.1093/neuros/nyw127
    1. Nair SK, Botros D, Chakravarti S et al (2023) Predictors of surgical site infection in glioblastoma patients undergoing craniotomy for tumor resection. J Neurosurg May 1(5):1227–1234. https://doi.org/10.3171/2022.8.JNS212799 - DOI
    1. Chiang HY, Kamath AS, Pottinger JM et al (2014) Risk factors and outcomes associated with surgical site infections after craniotomy or craniectomy. J Neurosurg Feb 120(2):509–521. https://doi.org/10.3171/2013.9.JNS13843 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources