Wound infection in pediatric surgery: A study in 1,094 neonates

Surgical site infections in infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit

“…Davenport was the first to report SSI rates in 1094 infants born between 1975 and 1987 admitted to a neonatal surgical unit in England [12]. However, a major limitation of this earlier study is the inclusion of a very small number of preterm infants of lower gestational age (born <32 weeks; n = 68), which limits application of the data in a modern context of increased survival of VLBW infants [12].…”

“…Davenport was the first to report SSI rates in 1094 infants born between 1975 and 1987 admitted to a neonatal surgical unit in England [12]. However, a major limitation of this earlier study is the inclusion of a very small number of preterm infants of lower gestational age (born <32 weeks; n = 68), which limits application of the data in a modern context of increased survival of VLBW infants [12]. According to our study, VLBW infants represent a significant proportion of infants who require surgical interventions and therefore, exclusion of these infants represents an important limitation of previous studies [11][12][13].…”

“…However, a major limitation of this earlier study is the inclusion of a very small number of preterm infants of lower gestational age (born <32 weeks; n = 68), which limits application of the data in a modern context of increased survival of VLBW infants [12]. According to our study, VLBW infants represent a significant proportion of infants who require surgical interventions and therefore, exclusion of these infants represents an important limitation of previous studies [11][12][13]. Furthermore although overall SSI rates were substantially higher in this earlier study (>16.6 %) compared to our data, these infants were managed before major improvements in neonatal and surgical care, which may have influenced the nature and/or risk of surgical interventions.…”

“…Previous studies in the pediatric age group included a limited number of neonates and infants, and did not discriminate risk based on the type of surgical intervention [10]. Some studies excluded significant neonatal risk groups such as very low birth weight (VLBW) infants [11][12][13]. Finally, other neonatal studies were performed in an ambulatory care setting or in resourcelimited countries [12,[14][15][16][17][18][19], which limits generalization of data to the neonatal intensive care setting where most high-risk interventions occur [10,20].…”

“…Some studies excluded significant neonatal risk groups such as very low birth weight (VLBW) infants [11][12][13]. Finally, other neonatal studies were performed in an ambulatory care setting or in resourcelimited countries [12,[14][15][16][17][18][19], which limits generalization of data to the neonatal intensive care setting where most high-risk interventions occur [10,20]. Given the frequent occurrence of surgical interventions and serious clinical consequences of infection in neonates, and the lack of recent data reporting rates of SSI in this age group, we sought to determine the incidence and clinical impact of SSI in a population-based cohort of infants admitted to a large provincial tertiary care neonatal unit.…”