Low rates of post-craniotomy surgical site infections in a developing country: surgical technique and results

Although neurosurgical surgical site infections (SSI) exert a devastating price on the postoperative course of patients in the developing countries, literature is sparse on the subject from these regions.

This study is an audit of post-craniotomy SSI in a sub-Sahara African academic neurosurgical practice. It is a retrospective descriptive analysis of neurosurgical SSI in a 7-year consecutive cohort of patients who survived more than 5 days following major cranial surgery. Our general neurosurgical operative goal is to keep the incidence of SSI as close to the global range as possible by, amongst other measures, enforcing strict compliance with appropriate operative room practice.

There were 211 craniotomies/craniectomies; 194 primary and 17 redo procedures. Male patients constituted 65%. The mean age was 32.2 (Standard Deviation +/- 17.2) years. The procedures were emergencies in 42.7% and urgent or elective in the rest. They were surgery for trauma in 46.9% and for tumour resections in 44.1%. The median duration of surgery was 3 hours (range 1-8.5 hours). Mortality was 4.3%. Functional outcome was assessed using a dichotomized Glasgow Outcome Scale and was good in 90.5%. Surgical site infections, mainly by Gram negative coliforms, occurred in 9 cases, 4.3%, leading to worse in-hospital outcome of 56% (p < .001) in those affected. Patients with a poorer pre-operative Karnofsky performance status had a higher infection rate (7.5%), than those with better clinical performance index, (2.3%). This difference was not significant (p = .09, unadjusted OR 3.46, 95% Confidence Interval 0.84-14.24).

Post-craniotomy SSI rates comparable to those in more advanced practice areas is achievable in developing countries.