Management of postoperative wound infection in posterior spinal fusion with instrumentation.

Successful treatment of an infection depends first on prompt diagnosis. Management of postoperative wound infections after spinal fusion with instrumentation often presents therapeutic difficulties. This study reviews a total of 28 wound infections. An infection rate of early infection with 3.6% and late infection with 1.9% was noted. The treatment of wound infection depends on the appearance of infection. In early wound infection, it is not always necessary to remove the instrumentation, if a successful suction-irrigation system was inserted. In late wound infection, we removed the hardware in all cases. No evidence of pyogenic infection was presented. Additionally, intravenous antibiotics were used after the antibiogram.