OBJECTIVES Sternal wound infections occurring after cardiac surgery have a critical impact on morbidity, mortality and hospital costs. This study evaluated the efficacy of a gentamicin-collagen sponge in decreasing deep sternal-wound infections in high-risk cardiac surgery patients. METHODS We conducted a quasi-experimental single-centre prospective cohort study in diabetic and/or overweight ...

BACKGROUND Deep sternal wound complications are uncommon after cardiac surgery. They comprise sternal dehiscence, deep sternal wound infections and mediastinitis, which will be treated as varying expressions of a singular pathology for reasons explained in the text. METHODOLOGY AND REVIEW This article reviews the definition, prevalence, risk factors, prevention, diagnosis, microbiology and ma...

Here I represent a rare case of deep sternal wound infection due to methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus which occurred beyond twelve months after the Coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The nationwide incidence rate of sternal surgical site infection has decreased significantly in recent years. With the decreasing sternal surgical site infection rate, question I addressed from this ca...

BACKGROUND Health-care-acquired infections (HAIs) are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgery. Prior work has identified several patient-related risk factors associated with HAIs. We hypothesized that rates of HAIs would differ across institutions, in part attributed to differences in case mix. METHODS AND RESULTS We analyzed 20 896 patients undergoing isolated corona...

Deep sternal wound infection is a severe complication after open heart surgery. According to the different severity and dimensions of the deep sternal wound infection, the treatment method is different. In this study, we aimed to describe our experience with the rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap for large sternal wound management, especially when 1 or 2 internal mammary arteries were absent.Be...

STUDY OBJECTIVES Median sternotomy infections are a serious complication of cardiac surgery. The purpose of this study was to determine the patient characteristics and operative variables that predict incidence of sternal infection, and possibly its severity. DESIGN Univariate and multivariate retrospective analysis comparing patient, operative, and post-operative data in patients with and wi...

during a 30-month period. 2s patients with deep infected median sternotomy wounds were managed surgically. fifteen patients had chronic sternal osteomyelitis with associated costochondruis, 7 patients had only costochondritis, and 3 patients had dehiscence and/or mediastinitis. twenty were male and 5 were female their ages rangedfrom 11 to 71 years. nine patients had 11 failed previous attempts...