[The role of the environment in postoperative infections]

The infections are a common complication after surgical procedures, ranging from wound to peritoneal infections. The authors compared the results, in terms of wound infection, of the same equipment in two hospitals, one of which of modern concept. They analysed 1202 operations equally distributed between the two hospitals classifying them in four kinds of operations: I (clean), II (clean-contaminated), III (contaminated), IV (septic). The difference, with less infections in the new hospital, appeared to be already evident if the global results were considered. Considering instead each kind of operations the difference was not statistically meaningful only in the clean operations. The role of antibiotic prophylaxis brought a modest improvement, also statistically not meaningful. Many authors in the past reported different results in terms of wound infections especially if the role of the environment was considered. Gillquist for instance, reported a reduction of wound infections after clean operations that was not present in the research of Bergman and Leissner. The great importance of the environment in preventing wound infections appear clearly in this research, together with the concept that many other factors play an important role.