Incidence of surgical-site infection following open reduction and internal fixation of a distal femur fracture: An observational case–control study

Surgical-site infection (SSI) is a common complication in orthopedic surgery; however, SSI after surgically managed distal femur fractures was not well studied. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of SSI and identify some modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors. The patients’ electronic medical records (EMRs) were reviewed to identify those who sustained a distal femur fracture and treated by open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) between March 2014 and February 2018. SSI was defined based on the Centers for Disease Control criteria and confirmed according to the descriptions in EMR. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to determine the independent risk factors associated with SSI. Totally, EMRs of 665 patients who underwent ORIF of distal femur fractures were reviewed and 24 SSIs were found, indicating the overall incidence of SSI was 3.6%. The rate of deep SSI was 1.2% and superficial SSI was 2.4%. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common causative pathogen, either alone (7/15, 46.7%) or as a mixed infection (3/15, 20%), followed by mixed bacterial (4/15, 26.7%) and S epidermidis (2/15, 13.3%) and others. Patients with SSI had approximately twice the length of hospital stay as those without SSIs (29.0 vs 16.0 days, P 
Source: Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Tags: Research Article: Observational Study Source Type: research