INTRODUCTION TO POSTSURGICAL INFECTION

One of the greatest advances in surgery during the twentieth century has been in understanding how to reduce the risk of infection during and after surgery. Any surgical procedure, no matter how small, carries the risk of infection. Simple procedures, such as placing a needle into a joint to remove fluid or inject medications, have a very low risk. More complex operations that require larger incisions and leave the skin open for longer have a higher risk. Operations done to insert something into the body, such as metal plates or artificial joints, must be done carefully to ensure that the foreign material that is left in the body does not carry bacteria with it. Preventing infection is one of the most important parts of any operation. All members of the health care team take preventing infection very seriously.

Infection prevention begins before surgery. Your doctor will make sure that no infections exist that may spread and cause problems with your surgery. If you have a skin infection, a bladder infection, or some other type of infection, your surgery may be postponed until the infection is treated and under control.

The morning before surgery, you may be asked to shower with antibacterial soap to reduce the number of bacteria on the skin. Before surgery begins, the skin around the incision site will be cleansed and prepped with a disinfectant, such as iodine. Before surgery, you may be given a dose of antibiotics. This is not true for all types of surgeries. Operations that have a low risk of infection usually do not require antibiotics as a precaution. Many orthopedic operations do require antibiotics, especially those operations where something artificial is left in the body.

During surgery, great care is taken to ensure that the entire operation is done under sterile conditions. Surgery is performed in a sterile room that is designed to prevent the spread of infection. All the items needed for surgery are sterilized.

Your wound dressing will also be applied under sterile conditions before you leave the operating room. The wound dressing is an important barrier against infection until the incision seals itself. This usually occurs in the first few days. If an incision is still seeping any type of drainage, this can be an avenue for germs to enter the wound. The dressing will be kept in place until all drainage stops and the incision seals itself.