Systematic Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Nov 18, 2018; 9(11): 271-284
Published online Nov 18, 2018. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v9.i11.271
Analysis of a ten step protocol to decrease postoperative spinal wound infections
Hossein Elgafy, Craig J Raberding, Megan L Mooney, Kyle A Andrews, Joan M Duggan
Hossein Elgafy, Craig J Raberding, Megan L Mooney, Kyle A Andrews, Joan M Duggan, Department of Orthopedics and Infectious Diseases, University of Toledo Medical Center, Toledo, OH 43614, United States
Author contributions: All the authors contributed in outlining the manuscript, gathering the data, and writing the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have any financial or other conflicts of interest that may bias the current study.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hossein Elgafy, FRCS (Ed), FRSC, MD, Professor, Department of Orthopedics and Infectious Diseases, University of Toledo Medical Centre, 3065 Arlington Avenue, Toledo, OH 43614, United States. hkelgafy@aol.com
Telephone: +1-419-3833515 Fax: +1-419-3833526
Received: June 25, 2018
Peer-review started: June 25, 2018
First decision: July 11, 2018
Revised: July 15, 2018
Accepted: August 26, 2018
Article in press: August 26, 2018
Published online: November 18, 2018
Processing time: 144 Days and 4.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The rates of infection following spine surgery have been reported to range from less than 1% to 10.9% depending on the type of case. Several factors have been identified as risk for surgical site infection. In response to an increasing number of surgical site infections at the authors’ institution, a new surgical protocol was initiated in an effort to reduce infection rates after an intensive epidemiological investigation failed to reveal a common source. Institution of this bundle returned surgical site infection rates to historic level of < 1%.