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Age not associated with increased incidence of wound dehiscence

The risk of wound dehiscence among patients undergoing plastic surgery is low overall, and patients' risk did not increase based on older age, according to a literature review.

Through a retrospective review of the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database, researchers identified 25,967 patients who underwent plastic surgery between 2005 and 2010. Seventy-eight percent of the patients had undergone breast reconstruction.

Variables such as basic patient demographics, comorbidities, previous steroid or tobacco use, wound classification at the completion of surgery and the development of surgical-site infections after surgery were extracted. Additionally, the researchers used multivariate analyses to determine the impact of increasing age on the incidence of wound dehiscence.

Overall, the incidence of wound dehiscence was low at 0.75%, according to the researchers. Among patients younger than 30 years of age, the overall incidence of wound dehiscence was 0.6%, compared with 0.7% for those between the ages of 31 to 40 and 0.8% for those between the ages of 41 and 50 years. Patients between the ages of 51 and 60 years had an overall incidence of wound dehiscence of 1%, whereas those between 61 and 70 years of age, as well as those older than 70 years, had an incidence of 0.6%.

The researchers observed that patients who developed wound dehiscence had a significantly higher likelihood of using tobacco or steroids, or being quadriplegic or paraplegic.

Those with contaminated and infected wounds post-surgery were also more likely to develop wound dehiscence than those who had a clean or uncontaminated wounds.

Patients who developed an abscess were 13 times more likely to develop wound dehiscence. - by Abigail Sutton

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.