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Updated: Aug 9, 2026
04:58
Collecting And Measuring Wound Exudate Biochemical Mediators In Surgical Wounds
Published on: October 20, 2012
Surgical wound infection surveillance
1Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN 55101, USA.
Zentralblatt Fur Chirurgie
|January 30, 2004
Summary
Surgical wound infection (WI) rates can change over time. A 20-year study of over 85,000 surgeries found these changes were not always due to decreased surgical care quality.
Area of Science:
- Surgical outcomes research
- Infection control
- Healthcare quality assessment
Background:
- Wound infection (WI) is the most common surgical complication.
- WI impacts patient satisfaction, function, and economic outcomes.
- WI frequency is a key metric for surgical quality evaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze trends in wound infection rates over a 20-year period.
- To evaluate the relationship between infection rate changes and surgical care quality.
Main Methods:
- Conducted global wound infection surveillance for 20 years.
- Analyzed data from 85,260 consecutive inpatient operations.
- Assessed secular changes in infection rates.
Main Results:
- Observed secular changes in wound infection rates over the 20-year surveillance period.
- These observed changes in infection rates were not definitively linked to decrements in surgical care quality.
Conclusions:
- Wound infection surveillance provides valuable data for performance evaluation.
- Changes in infection rates require careful interpretation and should not automatically be attributed to declining surgical quality.
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