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Deep SSIs seen in 13% of patients who underwent repetitive surgery for non-idiopathic scoliosis
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PHILADELPHIA — At the Scoliosis Research Society Annual Meeting, a presenter noted a deep infection rate of about 13% among patients who had growth-friendly procedures that necessitated repetitive surgery for non-idiopathic scoliosis. Expansions contributed to about 50% of these infections.
“Interestingly, and somewhat surprisingly and honestly contrasting to other work, we did not see a difference in [surgical site infections] SSI prevalence based on etiology, with rate being about the same for neuromuscular, congenital [and] syndromic patients,” Michael Vitale, MD, MPH, said during his presentation.
In a multicenter retrospective study, Vitale and colleagues used the Child’s Spine Study Group database to collect demographic and clinical characteristics of children with non-idiopathic scoliosis who required repetitive surgery. They identified 593 patients with either congenital, neuromuscular or syndromic scoliosis and underwent a total of 5,072 procedures. Deep SSI rates were assessed.
Results showed a 13% incidence of deep SSIs per patient. The risk of deep SSIs per procedure was 1.95%, with 99 SSIs reported throughout the study.
“About 20% of the time, infections are related to the implant and about 50% of the time, expansion; about 30% of the time, revision,” he said. “I think this is hopeful data in the era where we are doing much less repetitive surgery because if we can obviate the 50% of infections related to expansions, we can decrease the total of morbidity in infected children.” – by Monica Jaramillo
Reference:
Vitale M, et al. Paper #53. Presented at: Scoliosis Research Society Annual Meeting; September 6-9, 2017; Philadelphia.
Disclosure: Vitale reports no relevant financial disclosures.