Wound irrigation with aqueous antiseptic solutions may reduce surgical site infections
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Key takeaways:
- Wound irrigation with an antiseptic solution was associated with reduced surgical site infections after all surgeries.
- Irrigation with antiseptics may be preferred vs. irrigation with antibiotics.
According to published results, prophylactic intraoperative incisional wound irrigation with an antiseptic solution was associated with reduced surgical site infections compared with use of either an antibiotic solution or no irrigation.
Researchers used PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL and CINAHL databases to perform a systematic review of 41 randomized clinical trials and a network meta-analysis of 37 randomized clinical trials that reported on 17,188 patients with 1,328 (7.7%) surgical site infections (SSIs) after any type of surgery.
Researchers compared SSI outcomes between patients who received prophylactic intraoperative incisional wound irrigation with an antiseptic solution, antibiotic solution or saline solution. They also included data from patients who received no irrigation.
Overall, researchers found irrigation with an antiseptic solution was associated with reduced SSIs with a high level of certainty (RR = 0.60) vs. no irrigation. In addition, researchers found irrigation with an antibiotic solution was associated with reduced SSIs with a low level of certainty (RR = 0.46) vs. no irrigation.
Researchers noted no statistically significant difference between irrigation with a saline solution (RR = 0.83) vs. no irrigation with a moderate level of certainty.
“It is suggested that the use of antibiotic wound irrigation be avoided due to the inferior certainty of evidence for its outcome and global antimicrobial resistance concerns,” the researchers wrote in the study.
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