Risk factors for surgical site infection following total joint arthroplasty.

BACKGROUND: Currently, most hospitals in the United States are obliged to report infections that occur following total joint arthroplasty to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the National Healthcare Safety Network surveillance. The objective of this study was to identify the risk factors of surgical site infections that were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from a single institution.

METHODS: For this study, 6111 primary and revision total joint arthroplasties performed from April 2010 to June 2012 were identified. Surgical site infection cases captured by infection surveillance staff on the basis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition were identified. Surgical site infection cases with index surgery performed at another institution were excluded. All cases were followed up for one year for development of surgical site infection. The model for predictors of surgical site infection was created by logistic regression and was validated by bootstrap resampling.

RESULTS: Of all performed total joint arthroplasties, surgical site infection developed in eighty cases (1.31% [95% confidence interval, 1.02% to 1.59%]). The highest rate of surgical site infection was observed in revision total knee arthroplasty (4.57% [95% confidence interval, 2.31% to 6.83%]) followed by revision total hip arthroplasty (1.94% [95% confidence interval, 0.75% to 3.13%]). Among the variables examined, the predictive factors of surgical site infection were higher Charlson Comorbidity Index (odds ratio for a Charlson Comorbidity Index of ≥ 2, 2.29 [95% confidence interval, 1.32 to 3.94] and odds ratio for a Charlson Comorbidity Index of 1, 2.09 [95% confidence interval, 1.06 to 4.10]), male sex (odds ratio, 1.79 [95% confidence interval, 1.11 to 2.89]), and revision total knee arthroplasty (odds ratio, 3.13 [95% confidence interval, 1.17 to 8.34]), and a higher level of preoperative hemoglobin (odds ratio, 0.85 per point [95% confidence interval, 0.73 to 0.98 per point]) was protective against surgical site infection. The C-statistic of the model was 0.709 without correction and 0.678 after bootstrap correction, indicating that the model has fair predictive power.

CONCLUSIONS: Low preoperative hemoglobin level is one of the risk factors for surgical site infection and preoperative correction of hemoglobin may reduce the likelihood of postoperative surgical site infection.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.