Chlorhexidine Showers are Associated With a Reduction in Surgical Site Infection Following Spine Surgery: An Analysis of 4266 Consecutive Surgeries.

Abstract

Surgical site infection (SSI) is a common complication following spinal surgery. Prevention is critical to maintaining safe patient care and reducing additional costs associated with treatment. To determine the efficacy of preoperative chlorhexidine (CHG) showers on SSI rates following fusion and nonfusion spine surgery. A mandatory preoperative CHG shower protocol was implemented at our institution in November 2013. A cohort comparison of 4266 consecutive patients assessed differences in SSI rates for the pre- and postimplementation periods. Subgroup analysis was performed on the type of spinal surgery (eg, fusion vs nonfusion). Data represent all spine surgeries performed between April 2012 and April 2016. The overall mean SSI rate was 0.4%. There was no significant difference between the pre- (0.7%) and postimplementation periods (0.2%; P = .08). Subgroup analysis stratified by procedure type showed that the SSI rate for the nonfusion patients was significantly lower in the post- (0.1%) than the preimplementation group (0.7%; P = .02). There was no significant difference between SSI rates for the pre- (0.8%) and postimplementation groups (0.3%) for the fusion cohort (P = .21). In multivariate analysis, the implementation of preoperative CHG showers were associated with significantly decreased odds of SSI (odds ratio = 0.15, 95% confidence interval [0.03-0.55], P < .01). This is the largest study investigating the efficacy of preoperative CHG showers on SSI following spinal surgery. In adjusted multivariate analysis, CHG showering was associated with a significant decrease in SSI following spinal surgery.