Background: Vascular by-pass surgery is being used increasingly more frequently on elderly patients entailing several risk factors. Surgical infections in these procedures are a devastating complication which is related to high morbility and death rates. This study is aimed at ascertaining the incidence of surgical infections among patients having undergone a by-pass procedure with vascular prostheses, the risk factors associated thereto and the type or prosthesis entailing a lower infection rate.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted at the Vascular Surgery Unit of the Juan Canalejo University Hospital throughout the 2000-2002 period. The Disease Control Center infection criteria were those applied. The frequency measurements calculated were cumulative incidence and relative risk as an association measurement. The statistical tests employed were the Chi-square and the Chi-square trend tests, the Student's-T for univariate analysis and logic regression for the multi-variate analysis.
Results: The cumulative incidence rate for the 2000-2002 period was 22.6% to 12.1%. The most frequent microorganisms were Staphylococcus aureus, meticilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Escherichia coli. The risk factors related to infection found were female sex (RR=1.8) anesthetic risk >2 (RR=1.7) and patient implanted with sapheneous vein vascular prosthesis (RR=3.8).
Conclusions: The risk factors identified were the female sex, anesthetic risk and the type of prosthesis used, all of which condition infection-related complication in by-pass surgery.