Background
The rising incidence of blunt abdominal trauma increases the rate of hospital admissions for those cases worldwide, with some of them undergoing emergency laparotomy. Surgical site infection for those patients is still not an uncommon complication, which deserves great attention to be prevented or adequately managed if established. The aim of the study was to focus on the incidence of this complication along with factors that may affect its occurrence.
Patients and methods
The study was conducted at the general surgery emergency department of Kasr Al-Aini Cairo University hospital from July 2019 through February 2020. It included 30 patients who presented with blunt abdominal trauma and needed emergency laparotomy and then were observed for the occurrence of surgical site infection. Patients were individually correlated to a risk factor scoring system, which we had formulated to be used in the study.
Results
Overall, 20% of the patients had surgical site infection. The study showed increased incidence of postoperative SSI in patients with higher risk factor total score (score > 7) and low incidence with scores below that, with a significant relation ( value < 0.001).
Conclusion
The scoring system was helpful in the prediction of surgical site infection in the studied patient group.