The study includes patients who underwent spine surgery before they were 21 years old for spinal deformity. There were 1,094 patients included in the study. The researchers found:
1. Deep surgical site infection occurred in 3.6 percent of the patients; 3.3 percent of the patients reported deep SSI after their primary surgery and 8.3 percent reported deep SSI after a revision procedure.
2. The breakdown of SSI by diagnosis is:
• Idiopathic: 1 percent
• Neuromuscular: 14.3 percent
• Syndromic: 5.3 percent
• Congenital: 5.7 percent
• Kyphosis: 0 percent
3. Staphyloccoccus epidermidis was the most common SSI, representing 26 percent of the infections. The second most common was a tie between methicillin-sensitive Staphyloccoccus aureus, Propionibacterium acnes and Escherichia coli at 18 percent each.
4. Among the gram-negative infections, 89 percent occurred in the neuromuscular patients.
5. The study authors found between 2000 and 2006, the infection breakdown was:
• MSSA: 11 percent of the patients
• Methicillin-resistant S. aureus: 6 percent of the patients
• P. acnes: 17 percent of the patients
The infection breakdown for patients between 2007 and 2012 was:
• MSSA: 24 percent
• Methicillin-resistant S. aureus: 14 percent
• P. acnes: 19 percent
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