Normothermia to Decrease Surgical Site Infection Risk: Silver Bullet or Fool's Gold? A Retrospective Cohort Study

Surgical site infection (SSI) is the leading cause of nosocomial infections among surgical patients in the United States. Currently, there is compelling evidence suggesting that temperature dysregulation in surgical patients may be a risk factor for the development of SSI. We examined the relationship between perioperative hypothermia (PH) and SSI in a population of surgical patients with diabetes mellitus (DM).

This retrospective cohort review was conducted on patients with a history of DM undergoing orthopaedic surgery at our institution between May 1, 2018, and April 1, 2022. Inclusion criteria were age older than 15 years, a history of DM or recent hemoglobin A1c concentration of ≥6.5%, and operation of at least 60 minutes under general anesthesia. Perioperative hypothermia was defined as an intraoperative temperature ≤ 35.5°C. Continuous variables were compared using the t-test and Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Categorical variables were compared using the chi-squared test. We constructed a multivariable logistic regression model to estimate SSI risk while controlling for demographic variables.

A total of 236 patients were included in the final analysis. The overall incidence of SSI was 5.93%. 99 patients (42%) experienced PH. No difference was observed in the risk of SSI between the normothermic and hypothermic cohorts. Among the 99 patients who experienced PH, increasing HbA1c was associated with increasing risk of SSI (OR = 2.39, 95% CI = 1.12 to 5.32, P-value = 0.0222). The multivariable logistic regression model had good discriminatory ability (c-statistic 0.74, 95% CI: 0.61 to 0.89) and good predictive accuracy (sensitivity 64%, specificity 73%).

PH is not an independent risk factor of SSI. However, in the presence of elevated HbA1c, PH may more than double the risk of SSI. Perioperative hypothermia may be an additive risk factor in the setting of poor glycemic control and potentially in the setting of other known risk factors.