Korean J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg.  2002 May;35(5):375-380.

The Effect of Improved Operating Room and Intensive Care Unit on the Sternal Infection After Open Heart Surgery

• Lee SC
• Kim SW
• Lee EB
• Cho JY
• Kim DS
• Chang BH
• Kim KT
• Lee JT

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Sternal infection after open heart surgery is a serious complication associated with high rate of mortality. We reviewed the effect of improved operating room and intensive care unit on the sternal infection by analyzing the incidence and condition of that around the movement of operating room and intensive care unit in July 1999. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We reviewed a total of 453 patients. Group I contains 237 patients who underwent open heart surgery between January 1997 and December 1998 before we moved the intensive care unit and operating room, and Group II contains 216 patients who underwent open heart surgery between January 2000 and July 2001 after we moved. We only included adult patients over age 15 who underwent cardiopulmonary bypass through median sternotomy and excluded the mortality cases except sternal infections in this study. RESULT: Sternal infection developed in 18 patients(8.0%) in Group I, and in only 1 patient(0.49%) in Group II. Emergency operation, cardiopulmonary bypass time, operation time, transfusion, tracheostomy, and reoperation are significantly associated with sternal infection among the known risk factors. The logistic regression analysis containing those six factors revealed that the movement of intensive care unit and operating room is effective on the decreasing sternal infection(p=0.029, 95% confidence interval 0.011~0.788).
CONCLUSION
Although there have been studies on many risk factors associated with the sternal infection after open heart surgery, we think that the improvement of operting room and intensive care unit is a method for decreasing the incidence of sternal infection.

Keyword

Intensive care units; Wound infection

MeSH Terms

Adult
Cardiopulmonary Bypass
Emergencies
Heart*
Humans
Incidence
Intensive Care Units*
Critical Care*
Logistic Models
Mortality
Operating Rooms*
Reoperation
Risk Factors
Sternotomy
Thoracic Surgery*
Tracheostomy
Wound Infection