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Infection after blepharoplasty with and without carbon dioxide laser resurfacing
Susan R Carter1, Jay M Stewart, Jemshed Khan
1Department of Ophthalmology, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA. susanrcarter@earthlink.net
Purpose:
To determine the rate of infection in patients who underwent blepharoplasty with and without carbon dioxide laser resurfacing.
Design:
A retrospective, nonrandomized, consecutive case series.
Participants:
Eighteen hundred sixty-one patients who underwent upper or lower blepharoplasty, with or without carbon dioxide laser resurfacing.
Methods:
Charts of patients who underwent blepharoplasty, with or without laser resurfacing, were analyzed for the presence of postoperative infection, method of treatment, and possible sequelae.
Main Outcome Measures:
The rate of infection (%) was determined for each group of patients.
Results:
Infection occurred in 0.2% of patients who underwent blepharoplasty without laser resurfacing and 0.4% of patients who had adjunctive laser resurfacing. No permanent functional or cosmetic sequelae resulted from the episodes of infection.
Conclusions:
Infection after blepharoplasty without laser resurfacing is uncommon, indicating that topical antibiotic ointment prophylaxis is a sufficient postoperative regimen. The use of adjunctive laser resurfacing may increase the infection rate slightly.