Analysis of factors associated with incision infection in elderly general surgery patients / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore factors associated with incision infection in elderly patients undergoing general surgery and thus provide a basis for its clinical prevention.Methods Retrospective clinical data of 2985 elderly patients who underwent routine surgical operation after admission to the Department of General Surgery from Feb.2009 to Dec.2013 were analyzed.Patients with incision infection following surgery were assigned into the infection group,while patients without incision infection served as the control group.Single factor analysis and multivariate Logistic regression analysis were conducted to identify factors responsible for incision infection.Results There were 91 cases with incision infection,constituting a rate of 3.0％.Compared with the control group,patients in the infection group showed an older average age [(67.3±5.8) years vs.(63.0± 5.6) years,t=1.906,P＜0.05],a longer average operating time [(2.13±0.26) hours vs.(1.87±0.24) hours,t=10.149,P＜0.001],and a longer average incision length [(8.14±2.62) cm vs.(7.59±2.14) cm,t=2.396,P＜0.01].In addition,compared with the control group,more patients in the infection group received prophylactic antibiotics (74.7％ vs.83.3％,x2 =4.819,P=0.032),exhibited malnutrition (20.9％ vs.10.0％,x2 =11.418,P=0.001),and had diabetes mellitus (11.0％ vs.5.1％,x2 =5.968,P=0.015).Therefore,independent risk factors for incision infection included age (OR=1.89),operating time (OR=3.32),nutritional status (OR=2.08) and diabetes mellitus (OR=3.18).Conclusions A few risk factors may contribute to incision infection.Clinicians should take necessary preventive measures accordingly to minimize its occurrence.