Pressure Ulcers in Patients with Spinal Cord Injuries: Concordance Between Swab and Intraoperative Culture

1 BACKGROUND Infection of pressure ulcers constitutes the most frequent complication in spinal cord–injured patients; evidently, the surgical treatment of infected pressure ulcers is effective only when combined with a selected antibiotic therapy. However, the choice of the appropriate antibiotics is not simply due to the widespread variety of bacterial species involved in such infections. Only a few studies in the literature compare wound swabs with biopsies for the diagnosis of chronic infected wounds.1 Until now, the Levine technique has been considered as the most reliable and valid method. Still, the best sampling technique for taking a swab has not yet been identified and validated.2 The objective of our study is to assess the predictive value of ulcer swab specimen culture in identifying etiological agents of infection in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and pressure sores.