[Preoperative skin disinfection in interventions on the hip joint]

Gram-positive cocci in particular, mainly Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermis, can be identified on patients' skin as facultative causes of wound bed infection. Disinfection the evening prior to surgery causes a statistically significant reduction in the number of skin organisms. The only explanation of the increase in the number of such organisms in isolated patients following disinfection the evening prior to surgery, and also after preoperative disinfection, is recontamination of the disinfected skin areas. Covering them with sterile surgical trousers and adhesive foils does not provide sure protection from recontamination. Studies of this kind may enable specific hospitals to establish a perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis for their own spectrum of micro-organisms.