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Original Article
Volume 334:1209-1216 May 9, 1996 Number 19
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Perioperative Normothermia to Reduce the Incidence of Surgical-Wound Infection and Shorten Hospitalization
Andrea Kurz, M.D., Daniel I. Sessler, M.D., Rainer Lenhardt, M.D., The Study of Wound Infection and, for Temperature Group

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ABSTRACT

Background Mild perioperative hypothermia, which is common during major surgery, may promote surgical-wound infection by triggering thermoregulatory vasoconstriction, which decreases subcutaneous oxygen tension. Reduced levels of oxygen in tissue impair oxidative killing by neutrophils and decrease the strength of the healing wound by reducing the deposition of collagen. Hypothermia also directly impairs immune function. We tested the hypothesis that hypothermia both increases susceptibility to surgical-wound infection and lengthens hospitalization.

Methods Two hundred patients undergoing colorectal surgery were randomly assigned to routine intraoperative thermal care (the hypothermia group) or additional warming (the normothermia group). The patients' anesthetic care was standardized, and they were all given cefamandole and metronidazole. In a double-blind protocol, their wounds were evaluated daily until discharge from the hospital and in the clinic after two weeks; wounds containing culture-positive pus were considered infected. The patients' surgeons remained unaware of the patients' group assignments.

Results The mean (±SD) final intraoperative core temperature was 34.7±0.6°C in the hypothermia group and 36.6±0.5°C in the normothermia group (P<0.001). Surgical-wound infections were found in 18 of 96 patients assigned to hypothermia (19 percent) but in only 6 of 104 patients assigned to normothermia (6 percent, P = 0.009). The sutures were removed one day later in the patients assigned to hypothermia than in those assigned to normothermia (P = 0.002), and the duration of hospitalization was prolonged by 2.6 days (approximately 20 percent) in the hypothermia group (P = 0.01).

Conclusions Hypothermia itself may delay healing and predispose patients to wound infections. Maintaining normothermia intraoperatively is likely to decrease the incidence of infectious complications in patients undergoing colorectal resection and to shorten their hospitalizations.


Source Information

From the Thermoregulation Research Laboratory and the Department of Anesthesia, University of California, San Francisco (A.K., D.I.S.); and the Departments of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria (A.K., D.I.S., R.L.). Presented in part at the International Symposium on the Pharmacology of Thermoregulation, Giessen, Germany, August 17–22, 1994, and at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Atlanta, October 21–25, 1995.

Address reprint requests to Dr. Sessler at the Department of Anesthesia, 374 Parnassus Ave., 3rd Fl., University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0648.

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Related Letters:

Perioperative Normothermia and Surgical-Wound Infection
Benzer A., Sparr H. J., Kempen P. M., Osler T., Rogers F., Fletcher D., Schein M., Rucinski J., Wise L., Winfree C. J., Baker K. Z., Connolly E. S., Sessler D. I., Kurz A.
Extract | Full Text  
N Engl J Med 1996; 335:747-750, Sep 5, 1996. Correspondence

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