Intraoperative Wound Irrigation for Prevention of Surgical Site Infections After Abdominal Surgery

Objectives: To compare the frequency of surgical site infections after abdominal surgery with and without intraoperative irrigation of the surgical wounds. Methodology: This randomized controlled trial was performed in general surgery department, PAF Hospital, Islamabad from 10th August 2022 to 9th May 2023. A total of 520 patients undergoing abdominal surgeries of any gender between the ages of 15–70 years were included. Patients were randomly divided in two groups on the basis of non-probability, consecutive sampling. The participants included in the group-A did not receive any intraoperative wound irrigation. The participants in the Group-B received intraoperative wound irrigation with antiseptic solution i.e., povidone-iodine in solution. Each patient was followed up respectively on 7th, 21st and 30th days postoperatively to observe surgical site infection. Chi square test was applied to compare SSI percentage between two groups. P-value of less than 0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Mean age was 39.87±6.93 years in group-A and 37.67±7.56 years in Group-B. Out of 520 patients, 344 (66.15%) were males and 176 (33.85%) were females. Surgical site infection after abdominal surgery without intraoperative irrigation was found to be 34 (13.08%) and surgical site infection after abdominal surgery with intraoperative irrigation was 12 (4.62%), hence statistically significant (p-value = 0.0007). Conclusion: This study concluded that intraoperative wound irrigation is effective to prevent the surgical site infections after abdominal surgery.