[Prospective study comparing the incidence of wound infection following appendectomy for acute appendicitis in children: conventional treatment versus using reabsorbable antibacterial suture or gentamicin-impregnated collagen fleeces].

Postappendectomy wound infection is frequent in the pediatric age. It causes them important discomfort. We have conducted a prospective clinical study to evaluate this incidence under different surgical management. The subjects were children undergoing appendectomy for acute appendicitis. The patients belonging to the Control Group were operated, by standard surgical technique, along the first 9 months of the study period (n: 58). The Study Group was constituted by 101 children operated during the 9 consecutives months, identical on the basis of demographics and operations undergone, except for the use of, in an alleatory manner, sutures with antiseptic impregnation (Vicryl Plus, Ethicon Johnson & Johnson Medical), to close the incisi6n in children included in Study Sub-Group A, or gentamycin-containing collagen sponge (Collatamp EG, Aculia Fombona, S.A.; Schering-Plough, S.A.), placed within the muscles before wound closure, in the children belonging to the Study Sub-Group B. We have analyzed in the two Groups the incidence of postoperative wound infection and the mean Hospital stay. The use of sutures with antiseptic impregnation and/or gentamycin-containing collagen sponge, significantly reduced the wound infection rates in the children operated on for appendicectomy included in the Study Group, compared with the ones in the Control Group, therefore contributing to decrease the Hospital length of stay.