[Surveillance of surgical site infections after digestive surgery]. / Surveillance des infections du site opératoire en chirurgie digestive.

OBJECTIVE: The authors had for aim to monitor surgical site infections (SSI) after digestive surgery and to compare local hospital rates to those of the south-east French region. The overall rate of SSI was compared to the rate of two targeted surgeries: cholecystectomy and hernia repair (CHOL, HERN). METHOD: Surveillance of all surgical procedures, following "CCLIN Sud-Est" surveillance guidelines was carried out between June and August 2006. RESULTS: Three hundred and thirty-eight surgeries were included. Among them, 20 SSIs (5.92%) were diagnosed and confirmed by a surgeon. The univariate analysis identified six risk factors: age, wound classes (3 or 4), ASA (3 or 4 or 5), length of surgery (greater than two hours), complexity of surgery, and carcinologic surgery. In the multivariate analysis, ASA score and length of surgery were significantly linked to SSI. SSI rates for HERN and CHOL were respectively 2.7 (2/73) and 2.9% (2/68). CONCLUSION: The overall rate of infection was high compared to the "CCLIN Sud-Est" 2005 data. However, teaching hospitals accounted for only 8% of all interventions and they usually hospitalize patients at risk. Thus, the overall follow-up requires stratifying the results in homogeneous groups of patients (NNIS) to have comparable results overtime and between hospitals. In addition, this monitoring is difficult to perform because it is a very time-consuming routine. However, if CHOL and HERN are more reliable for comparison and less time-consuming, they do not reflect the overall rate of SSI.

Additional direct medical costs of nosocomial infections: an estimation from a cohort of patients in a French university hospital.

We estimated the direct additional medical costs of nosocomial infections (NI) using a cohort study in acute and longer-term care at Nîmes University Hospital in France. Patients hospitalised between May 2001 and January 2003 with NI were considered as exposed; all others were eligible as non-exposed. Thirty patients were randomly chosen for each site of infection: respiratory tract, bloodstream, surgical site, urinary tract and other sites for a total of 150 exposed patients. Each exposed patient was matched with a non-exposed patient according to gender, age, severity of the underlying disease, diagnosis according to hospital discharge records, ward type and length of hospitalisation before inclusion. Additional direct medical costs for the exposed patients compared to the non-exposed and the difference between actual costs and the diagnosis-related group rate were measured. Costs resulting from laboratory tests, radiology, surgery and exploratory examinations, and antimicrobial agents were estimated to be Euro2421 for a respiratory tract infection, Euro1814 for a surgical site infection, Euro953 for a bloodstream infection and Euro574 for a urinary tract infection. Total additional costs of NI (direct medical costs and costs of extra length of stay) in acute care were estimated to be up to Euro3.2 million per year (95% confidence interval: 2,275,063-4,132,157). In conclusion, both prevention of avoidable NI and better estimation of the actual costs of NI should be priorities for all healthcare facilities.

Mortality attributable to nosocomial infection: a cohort of patients with and without nosocomial infection in a French university hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To assess nosocomial infection (NI) as a risk factor for death and to estimate the population-attributable risk of death from NI. DESIGN: A prospective cohort study of patients with and without NI. SETTING: Nimes University Hospital, Nimes, France. PATIENTS: Patients were recruited from May 7, 2001, to January 10, 2003. Patients in acute care and long-term care units who had NI were enrolled, and patients without NI were randomly selected and matched with patients with NI for age, sex, type of care (acute care vs. long-term care) and length of stay in hospital at study inclusion. OUTCOME MEASURES: Vital status within 60 days after study inclusion was assessed. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate the relative death risk from NI after adjusting for comorbidities, severity of the underlying disease, and all other confounding factors. The adjusted population-attributable risk was assessed using the Mantel-Haenszel method. RESULTS: We recruited 1,914 patients with NI and 5,172 patients without NI. The median age of the patients with NI was 73 years; 1,045 (54.6%) were female. NI was associated with death within 60 days (adjusted odds ratio, 1.7 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.4-;2.2]; P<.001). The adjusted population-attributable risk of death for all sites of infection was 1.7% (95% CI, 1.4-2.1). If we consider the NI incidence to be 3%-6% in French hospitals, the population-attributable risk of death from NI would range from 2.1% (95% CI, 1.7%-2.5%) to 4.0% (95% CI, 3.3%-4.9%). CONCLUSION: In this study, NI appeared to have a significant impact on mortality. Multicenter studies will be needed to confirm these results.