Sternale Wundinfektionen nach herzchirurgischer Operation unter extrakorporaler Zirkulation

Risk factors for mediastinitis after cardiac surgery – a retrospective analysis of 1700 patients

“…The incidence of postoperative mediastinitis varied between 0.5 and 5% in several studies. Our reported incidence of 2.65% is in agreement with recently published results [21,25]. Long-term mortality has been extensively investigated in several studies.…”

“…During the recent ten years, several studies evaluated risk factors for postoperative mediastinitis [2,7-9,21,25-40]. It is of note, however, that low patient numbers and multiple statistical tests can lead to false positive results [41].…”

“…We also compared the identified risk factors with data from a recent report from our department [21]. The only risk factor common to both studies was obesity, whereas low cardiac output, smoking, age, postoperative respiratory failure and the type of sternal closure were not related to the risk of postoperative mediastinitis.…”

“…In this study, we evaluated pre-, intra-, und postoperative risk factors for mediastinitis and compared the results with a previous report from our department [21]. This report analysed 112 mediastinitis patients from 1988 to 1999.…”