Efficacy of Subcutaneous Closed Suction Drain in Reduction of Postoperative Surgical Site Infection

Background  Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the infections of wound after an invasive operative approach. It remains to be a major morbidity for patients undergoing surgeries although there have been tremendous improvements in the surgical techniques. Different interventions to suppress the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been proposed. Many of them have been routinely used by surgeons like minimizing shaving, hand washing, and preoperative antibiotics and these are well accepted. Drains are used in major abdominal surgeries, hernia repairs, breast surgeries reducing collections in closed areas. 1 Hematoma, serous fluid, and dead space in surgical incision wounds raise the risk of infection as they serve as the platform for microbial growth. Studies have proved that the usage of subcutaneous drains has lowered the chances of infection. Results  The patients in the case group had lower incidence of SSI compared with the control group. The patients in the case group had subcutaneous drain which drained any collection that developed in the subcutaneous space. When the incidence of SSI was compared between the emergency cases and elective cases, the emergency cases showed higher propensity for SSI and increased rate for patients who had co-morbidities like diabetes mellitus, hypertension, etc. The most common organism isolated from the SSI was found to be Escherichia coli . It was also noted that the mean number of days of hospital stay was comparatively higher for the patients who developed SSI compared with patients who did not develop SSI. Conclusion  Thus the presence of SSI adds morbidity to the patient and the patients who undergo major surgeries are likely to develop SSI postoperatively. The presence of subcutaneous closed suction drain helps in reducing the SSI to a certain extent.