A study on the incidence of postoperative infections and surgical sepsis in a university hospital.

Reported are the results of a study on the incidence of nosocomial surgical infections in ten wards of the university hospital A. Gemelli, Rome. One thousand, five hundred five patients were studied and the overall incidence of surgical infections was 8.7%. Factors that influenced infection rates included age, immunosuppressive diseases, and immunosuppressive therapy. We assessed the inutility of antibiotic prophylaxis in clean operations and its usefulness in clean operations with insertion of prostheses or other devices. The importance of the duration of preoperative hospitalization and of the length of the operation were also noted. The most frequent etiological agents proved to be Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli. The average hospital stay for patients with surgical infection was more than double that of patients with no infection (25.7 days v 11.7 days).