Incidence of deep and superficial sternal infection after open heart surgeryA ten years retrospective study from 1981 to 1991

Abstract

Between January 1981 and December 1991, 4137 adult patients underwentvarious cardiac procedures via a median sternotomy under cardiopulmonarybypass. The overall infection rate was 1.33%, including superficial woundinfections (SWI) (1.18%) and deep sternal infection (DSI) (0.145%).Pericardial and retrosternal suction drains with a vent allowed a betterdrainage of blood and serosities and probably contributed to our low DSIrate. Eleven factors predisposing to infection were evaluated by Fisher'sexact test. Only the operative urgency (P = 0.006), reexploration forbleeding (P = 0.00001) and preoperative renal failure (P = 0.0005) werestatistically significant. Twenty of our infected patients had no riskfactors for infection. When the risk factors described in the literaturewere applied to our infected patients, only one had no risk factor.