Closed Incision Negative-Pressure Therapy Is Associated with Decreased Surgical-Site Infections: A Meta-Analysis

Negative-pressure therapy has recently been used over closed incisions to decrease surgical-site occurrences, including infection and dehiscence. A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of closed incision negative-pressure therapy in lowering the incidence of surgical-site infections compared with standard dressings.

A literature search was conducted to find publications comparing closed incision negative-pressure therapy to standard incisional care. A fixed-effects model was used to assess between-study and between-incision location subgroup heterogeneity and effect size. Funnel plots were used to assess publication bias.

The overall weighted average rates of surgical-site infection in the closed incision negative-pressure therapy and control groups were 6.61 percent and 9.36 percent, respectively. This reflects a relative reduction in surgical site infection rate of 29.4 percent. A decreased likelihood of surgical-site infection was evident in the closed incision negative-pressure therapy group compared with the control group across all studies, and across all four incision location subgroups. Across all studies, odds of surgical-site infections decreased 0.564 (p < 0.00001). After excluding groin incision studies because of heterogeneity following sensitivity analysis, the odds of surgical-site infection decrease was still 0.496 (p < 0.00001). In addition, overall rates of dehiscence in closed incision negative-pressure therapy and control groups were 5.32 percent and 10.68 percent, respectively.

The results of this meta-analysis suggest that closed incision negative-pressure therapy is a potentially effective method for reducing surgical-site infections. It also appears that closed incision negative-pressure therapy may be associated with a decreased incidence of dehiscence, but the published data available were too heterogeneous to perform meta-analysis.