Sternal Wound Infection Following Open Heart Surgery: Incidence, Risk Factor, Pathogen, and Mortality

Background: Due to its high morbidity and mortality after open-heart surgery, sternal wound infection (SWI) is one of the most important consequences to avoid and manage.Aim: To assess the incidence, risk factor, causative organ-isms, and mortality of SWIs in patients who had open-heart surgery over a 9-year period at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Methods: A retrospective study was done on 634 patients who underwent open heart surgery. Data was collected, including patient demographics, BMI, blood group, diabe-tes, hyperlipidemia, COPD, previous cardiac surgery, previ-ous myocardial infarction, duration of the operation, blood transfusion during the operation, hospital length of stay, and bypass time with each type of sternal wound infection.Results: The incidence of SSWI and DSWI was 8.6% and 4.1%, respectively. Coagulase-negative staphylococcus was the most frequently isolated organism from SSWI and DSWI patients. A concomitant diabetes mellitus that necessitates blood transfusion was identified as one of the risk variables for SSWI in a multivariate regression study. While concomi-tant diabetes, being a woman, and a lengthy hospital stay were independently linked with DSWI. Compared with the SSWI group, the 30-day mortality rate for DSWI patients was 3.8% as opposed to 3.7%, and the difference in survival was not statistically significant. Having an older, longer bypass time, and postoperative problems were independent risk factors for 30-day mortality.Conclusion: Future studies in various healthcare settings are required in order to generalize the results because this was a single center study.