Are There Racial Differences in the Rate of Surgical Site Infection Based on Surgical Subspecialty?

Surgical site infection (SSI) is a common, morbid post-operative complication. We hypothesized the presence of racial differences in SSI rates, comparing black/African American (BAA) to white non-Hispanic (WNH) patients. Using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database (2017), BAA and WNH surgery patients across 10 surgical specialties were identified: general surgery (GS), vascular surgery (VS), cardiac surgery (CS), thoracic surgery (TS), orthopedics (OS), neurosurgery (NS), urology (US), otolaryngology (ENT), plastic surgery (PS), and gynecology (GYN). The primary outcome was SSI rate (superficial, deep incisional, or organ/space). The secondary outcome was rate of non-surgical infection. Pearson χ² and Fisher exact tests were used to test group differences of categorical variables. Continuous variables were tested with the Student t-test, or Mann-Whitney U test, with statistical significance set at a value of p < 0.05. Multivariable logistic regression models were conducted to analyze the association between race/ethnicity and the infection outcomes. A total of 740,144 patients were included: 99,425 (13.4%) BAA and 640,749 (86.6%) WNH, distributed as follows; 32,2976 GS, 17,6175 OS, 44,383 VS, 2,227 CS, 9,645 TS, 42,298 NS, 42,726 US, 18,518 ENT, 20,709 PS, and 60,517 GYN cases. Surgical site infection rates were higher among WNH in GS (4.4% vs. 4.1%; p = 0.003) and TS (3.1% vs. 1.7%; p = 0.015); lower in VS (3.2% vs. 4.4%; p < 0.001), OS (1.2% vs.1.6%; p < 0.001), and GYN (2.4% vs. 3%; p < 0.001); and similar between WNH and BAA in ENT (1.8% vs 1.8%; p = 0.76), and US (1.9% vs. 1.9%; p = 0.90). Non-surgical infection was higher in BAA in NS (3.2% vs. 2.5%; p = 0.003), and higher in WNH in GYN (2.6% vs. 2%; p < 0.001), OS (1.7% vs. 1.1%; p < 0.001), US (4.4% vs. 3.6%; p = 0.014), and VS (3.4% vs. 2.6%; p < 0.001). Variation exists in SSI rates between WNH and BAA patients among surgical subspecialties. Further research is required to understand these differences and address racial disparities in outcomes.