Do Antibacterial Skin Sutures Reduce Surgical Site Infections After Open Abdominal Surgery?

Background: Poor wound healing and the development of surgical site infection (SSI) continue to occur and remain a significant cause of disability among operated patients. In spite of the substantial advances in our understanding of the epidemiology, pathogenesis and prevention it remains one of the most common complications in conventional abdominal surgery with an incidence in the literature between 4% and 17%. As it is known that surgical sutures potentiate the development of wound infection the search for an ideal suture material, suitable for all purposes has been pursued by surgeons for decades.

Hypothesis: In line with in-vitro results the investigators hypothesize that the use of antibacterial skin sutures with triclosan poliglecaprone 25 reduces the rate of SSI after open abdominal surgery Methods: To prevent microbial colonization of suture material in operative wounds and therefore to prevent SSI, triclosan-coated poliglecaprone 25 suture materials with antibacterial activity will be tested against un-coated suture material for skin closure after open abdominal surgery of 200 patients. The study is planed as a single center, randomized controlled trial. After ethical approval the patients will be consecutively enrolled from 2011 to 2012 in the Department of Visceral Surgery, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. The patients will be followed for 30 days (day 3,7 and 30) to detect and document wound complications. Wound complications will be classified according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention Standard guidelines. Data will be collected and the rate of SSI will be analysed in both groups.

Expected value of the proposed project: If the investigators can confirm the proposed hypothesis in our study this could be a promising and feasible approach to lower SSI after open abdominal surgery and might be also used in other surgical fields. By lowering the rate of SSI the investigators might offer a new and cost saving procedure to the surgical community.