Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is a major complication in spinal instrumentation that is often difficult to treat. The purpose of this study was to identify and determine prognostic indicators for successful treatment of spine instrumentation SSI.
Methods: Retrospectively, spine surgery cases were examined on SSI diagnosis. Post-instrumentation SSI patients were categorized as "Successful" if SSI subsided after single debridement. Patients in whom SSI did not subsided and/or required removal of instrumentation were classified as "Challenging". We investigated the relation of treatment outcomes to patients and treatment factors.
Results: A total of 1832 spinal instrumentation cases were recognized with 44 (2.40%) SSI cases. White blood cell count, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, causative bacteria (i.e., S. Aureus or MRSA), trauma injury, and early-stage antimicrobial agent sensitivity correlated with treatment prognosis. Multivariate analysis highlighted CRP levels and applying early-stage sensitive antibiotics as potential impactful predictive factors for successful treatment.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that early selection of sensitive antimicrobial agents is critical and emphasizes the potential for early-stage classification methods such as Gram staining. Additionally, S. Aureus and MRSA SSI formed significantly more challenging infections to treat, thus requiring consideration when deciding on instrumentation retention. These factors offer promising aspects for further large-scale studies.
Keywords: MRSA; antibiotics; instrumentation; postoperative infection; prognostic factor; spine; surgery; surgical site infection.