Study results were reported at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2012 Annual Meeting. Investigators retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 1,512 adult patients who had undergone spinal surgery where surgeons sprinkled one gram of vancomycin into the incision before closing it to evaluate postoperative wound infection rates.
Key findings include:
• Only 0.86 percent of patients had evidence of postoperative deep-wound infection.
• In the instrumented surgeries, the rate of deep-wound infection was 0.9 percent; in uninstrumented surgeries, the rate was 0.8 percent.
• None of the patients who had uninstrumented spinal fusion showed signs of deep infection.
• The rate of infection ranged from 0.33 percent in 2010 to 1.50 percent in 2006.
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