[Reliable and unreliable health measures in surgery]

Despite high standards in theatre design, surgical skills and antibiotic prophylaxis, surgical site infections are still a major complication in modern surgery. After urinary tract infections and lower respiratory tract infections they account for 15.8% of all nosocomial infections in Germany [31]. Causes are multiple and only partially exogenous. The single most important (exogenous) risk factor is the technical skill of the surgeon. Not all surgical site infections are therefore preventable by infection control measures alone. Useful and useless infection control measures will be evaluated critically in the following review according to data in the literature.