Surgical site infection: rates, etiology and resistance patterns to antimicrobials among strains isolated at Rio de Janeiro University Hospital.

A 6-month prospective surveillance was conducted in the Department of General Surgery of the Rio de Janeiro University Hospital. Postoperative infections were classified according to CDC criteria. This study reports a significant rate (16.9%) in surgical infections detected by surveillance in a series where 45% of surgical interventions were classified as clean. The majority (52.7%) was apparent only after patient discharge from the hospital. Bacterial cultures were obtained from 42 out of 55 infected wounds. Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently found pathogen (33.9%), followed by Escherichia coli (20.3%). With the exception of S. aureus isolates, multiresistance was found in 66% of coagulase-negative staphylococci and 60% of gram-negative bacteria. This study showed that community surveillance associated with hospital surveillance is necessary in order to determine accurate rates of surgical site infections, and also showed that the emergence of multiresistant bacterial strains was common among isolates of surgical infections.