Wound Treatment in Relation to Surgical Site Infections

Abstract

Background: Surgical wounds heal by essential purpose in all the elective and emergency surgical processes. Current practice is to place dressing over the closed wound before the patient leaves the sterile environment of the operating theatre. Dressing is a material used to protect a wound and help its healing. On the other hand, to leave wound open in direct contact to environment following any procedure by only applying some ointment on it, the purported open wound treatment is yet debatable one. In the current study we have compared open wound treatment versus occlusive dressings in elective surgical cases with respect to surgical site infections. Materials and Methods: The current study was directed on 50 patients experienced for elective general surgery. Patients were divided randomly in to two equal groups each containing of 25 patients. In Group 1, patients had occlusive dressing till removal of stitches and in Group 2, patients wounds were retained exposed to environment after the surgical procedure. The study was done after approval of ethical board of King Abdulaziz university. Results: In the current study, we perceived total 7% of postoperative wounds were infected of all the clean and clean contaminated wounds we studied. In Group 1, patients had occlusive dressing and these patients had 8% infection rate whereas in Group 2 patients, wounds were kept exposed to the environment and these patients had 6% infection rate. Conclusion: It is thus, concluded that in the elective surgical cases there was no damage in leaving the wounds open postoperatively. This process not only supports in arresting the infective pathology at a reduced stage but likewise saves surgeon’s time and patient’s cash.