“…Thus, a variety of risk factors for SSI after spinal surgery have been previously identified to prevent this significant complication. These risk factors include advanced age [ 3 ], male sex [ 4 ], obesity [ 5 , 6 ], previous spinal surgery [ 5 ], malnutrition [ 3 ], diabetes [ 5 – 7 ], smoking [ 5 ], spinal trauma [ 8 , 9 ], corticosteroid use [ 5 , 10 ], spinal instrumentation [ 11 ], posterior surgical approach [ 2 ], tumor resection [ 2 ], surgery involving sacrum [ 11 ], dural tear [ 12 ], conventional open spinal surgery instead of endoscopic tubular surgery [ 13 , 14 ], increased estimated blood loss [ 7 ], and prolonged operating time [ 11 , 15 ]. However, some of these studies were performed retrospectively at individual institutions and/or were limited by their relatively small sample size.…”