Abstract
Objectives: To determine if the use of intrawound vancomycin powder reduces surgical-site infection after open reduction and internal fixation of bicondylar tibial plateau, tibial pilon, and calcaneus fractures. Design: Retrospective analysis. Setting: Level I trauma center. Patients: All fractures operatively treated from January 2011 to February 2015 were reviewed; 583 high-risk fractures were included, of which 35 received topical vancomycin powder. A previously published prospectively collected cohort of 235 similar high-risk fractures treated at our center from 2007 through 2010 served as a second comparison group. Intervention: Topical vancomycin powder at wound closure. Main Outcome Measurements: Deep surgical-site infection. Analyses used both univariate comparison of all patients and 1:2 matching analysis using both nearest neighbor and propensity-based matching. Results: Compared with a control group of fractures treated during the same time period without vancomycin powder, the infection rate with vancomycin powder was significantly lower [0% (0/35) vs. 10.6% (58/548), P = 0.04]. Compared with our previously published historical infection rate of 13% for these injuries, vancomycin powder was also associated with significantly decreased deep surgical-site infection (0% vs. 13%, P = 0.02). These results agreed with the matched analyses, which also showed lower infection in the vancomycin powder group (0% vs. 11%–16%, P ≤ 0.05). Conclusions: Vancomycin powder may play a role in lowering surgical-site infection rates after fracture fixation. A larger randomized controlled trial is needed to validate our findings.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 23-28 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of orthopaedic trauma |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2021 |
Keywords
- calcaneus fracture
- deep infection
- surgical-site infection
- tibial pilon fracture
- tibial plateau fracture
- vancomycin powder
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Surgery
- Orthopedics and Sports Medicine