A new study published in Spine examines surgical site infection for pediatric spine surgery patients.
The study includes patients who underwent spine surgery before they were 21 years old for spinal deformity. There were 1,094 patients included in the study. The researchers found:
1. Deep surgical site infection occurred in 3.6 percent of the patients; 3.3 percent of the patients reported deep SSI after their primary surgery and 8.3 percent reported deep SSI after a revision procedure.
2. The breakdown of SSI by diagnosis is:
• Idiopathic: 1 percent
• Neuromuscular: 14.3 percent
• Syndromic: 5.3 percent
• Congenital: 5.7 percent
• Kyphosis: 0 percent
3. Staphyloccoccus epidermidis was the most common SSI, representing 26 percent of the infections. The second most common was a tie between methicillin-sensitive Staphyloccoccus aureus, Propionibacterium acnes and Escherichia coli at 18 percent each.
4. Among the gram-negative infections, 89 percent occurred in the neuromuscular patients.
5. The study authors found between 2000 and 2006, the infection breakdown was:
• MSSA: 11 percent of the patients
• Methicillin-resistant S. aureus: 6 percent of the patients
• P. acnes: 17 percent of the patients
The infection breakdown for patients between 2007 and 2012 was:
• MSSA: 24 percent
• Methicillin-resistant S. aureus: 14 percent
• P. acnes: 19 percent