Wound infection in colonic surgery

Three hundred forty-one consecutive cases of colonic surgery performed by the Proctology service of our hospital have been reviewed. There was a total of 7 wound infections, constituting an incidence of 2.1%. The infection rate in clean contaminated cases was 0.8% and in contaminated cases, 4.7%. The mortality rate was 2.3%. Parenteral antibiotics were used in less than 50% of the operations. Our impression is that attention to one modality of wound infection prevention with disregard for the others will produce little. However, close attention to all the modalities by which we can hope to reduce wound infection appears to produce strikingly beneficial results.