An Evaluation of Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) in Thyroidectomies Without a Prophylactic Antimicrobial in a Teaching Hospital of Suburban Setup

Background: The majority of wounds had been infected until mid-1800s, when Ignaz Semmelweis and Joseph Lister introduced antiseptic surgery, becoming “pioneers of infection management. This led to a 70-80% death rate in situations of deep or widespread infections. Since then, there have been numerous significant advancements that have made surgery safer, especially in field of microbiology. However, prevalence of Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) remains high overall and contributes significantly to” disease burden. International recommendations do not regularly advocate systemic antibiotic prophylaxis since Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) in thyroidectomies are a rare and infrequent occurrence, according to various research conducted in developed countries. Aim: The study is to evaluate Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) in thyroidectomies without any prophylactic antimicrobial as per the International standards. Patients and Methods: Surgeons performed endotracheal intubation during thyroid surgeries, including thyroidectomy or total thyroidectomy. Every patient’s postoperative signs and symptoms of SSI have been determined using criteria for SSI. In case of SSIs, exudates were collected with 2 sterile swabs and transported immediately to Department of Microbiology without any delay. The isolation, identification of the etiological agents and their antimicrobial susceptibility testing were performed as per the standard microbiological techniques and analysed. Results: Current analysis comprised 244 patients with 2.45% incidence of SSIs (6 out of 244) that underwent either hemi or complete thyroidectomy. Male-to-female ratio had been 1:3.2, with majority of patients (64.75%) being female. Maximum number of patients (26.23%) were females in 31-40 yrs age group. Average age of research population has been 36±13yrs. (20-65years). Major number of patients (64.39%) underwent Hemithyroidectomy. Etiological Aerobic Bacteria caused SSIs in current research, where Staphylococcus aureus was “the major pathogen. Staphylococcus aureus was showing resistance to many common antimicrobials among gram-Positive bacteria (GPB)” whereas E. coli is sensitive to many common antimicrobials. Conclusion: A thyroidectomy is a brief procedure with small incision that is categorised as clean or type-I incision with minimal infection. It might not be essential to employ preventative antibacterial treatment to prevent incision infection since the surgery is performed under stringent sterility and haemostasis conditions.