This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Wound irrigation with povidone-iodine, hydrogen peroxide solution prevented postop spine infections
Ulivieri S. Arch Orthop Trauma Surg. 2011. doi:10.1007/s00402-011-1262-0.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Italian investigators found that irrigating surgical wounds with a povidone-iodine and hydrogen peroxide solution further reduced postoperative infection after spine surgery.
In January 2009, Simone Ulivieri, MD, and colleagues at Santa Maria alle Scotte Hospital in Siena, Italy, began systematically irrigating the surgical wounds of patients undergoing spine surgery with a solution of povidone-iodine (PVP-I) and hydrogen peroxide (H202).
The investigators prospectively recorded the clinical data of patients who underwent 490 spine surgeries in 2009. They compared those results with retrospectively reviewed clinical records of patients operated on during 2008 who underwent a total of 460 surgeries. The investigators analyzed patients for preoperative risk factors, surgical procedure type, infection onset, clinical presentation, treatment and outcome.
The results showed that seven patients had postoperative infections in 2008, and there were no infections in 2009.
“We consider the solution of PVP-I plus H202 effective in further reducing the rate of postoperative infection in spine surgery,” the authors wrote.