Added hospital stay due to wound infections following cardiac surgery.

To determine the prolongation of hospital stay due to postoperative wound infections following cardiac surgery, a prospective cohort study was performed by matching multiple control patients without infection to each infected patient (= case). Out of 22 cases, no patient died. No case had to be excluded from the matching process because of a lack of suitable control patients. The maximum number of controls per case was 10. The mean added stay was 12.2 days constituting a considerable prolongation of stay due to wound infection in cardiac surgery.