Letters to the Editor
Article Outline
Surgical site infection data
I appreciated your article on surgical site infections (SSIs) in the November issue of the Journal (Vol 85, “Surgical Site Infection: The Host Factor”). In this article, the authors state that data from the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) system for 1986 to 1992 indicate that infection occurs at the surgical site in 2.6% of surgeries.1(p801)
It is interesting to note that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a public health report titled “Estimating Health Care-Associated Infections and Deaths in US Hospitals, 2002,”2 which includes data on SSIs. The main source of the CDC report data is NNIS system data from 1991 to 2002. Other sources are the National Hospital Discharge Survey for 2002 and the American Hospital Association Survey for 2000.
The CDC report estimates that there were 274,098 SSIs in the US population (ie, approximately two per 100 surgeries) for procedures monitored in the NNIS system. The authors estimate that 20% of health care-acquired infections are SSIs; however, no mention is made of the classification of the surgical procedures (ie, clean, clean contaminated, contaminated, dirty or infected wounds). Inquiring of the public health report's primary author about their estimates, I was told that the CDC's “effort really was to give an overall estimate for the country, so we couldn't get into details” (written communication, R. Monina Klevens, DDS, MPH, October 30, 2007).
Considering the credible data sources used for the CDC report, those reading it or citing it in other clinical publications have no reason not to accept the information at face value. It is important, though, that the authors of the CDC report clarify any information that could be unclear to or misconceived by the reader.
References
PII: S0001-2092(08)00013-6
doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2008.01.007
© 2008 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc All rights reserved.
