Postoperative surveillance for surgical site infections (SSIs) after open appendectomy in a tertiary care hospital of district Peshawar, Pakistan.

Abstract

Objective: To discover the frequency of surgical site infections (SSIs) for acute appendicitis following the open appendectomy. Study Design: Cross Sectional study. Setting: Department of Surgery, Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar. Period: January 2021 to June 2021. Material & Methods: In this research, overall, 287 patients were examined and scrutinized. After obtaining the informed consent and detailed history, all the patients considered of having appendicitis were placed on the next OT list. Typical pre-operative measures were followed. In all cases, a single qualified general surgeon carried out all the surgeries. Once the surgeries were completed, standard post-operative protocols were maintained for all patients which included antibiotics like ciprofloxacin 500mg BD+ Flagyl 400mg/100ml TDS, analgesics (like diclofenac 50 mg TDS) and wound dressings for 24 hours. Results:  In the current study, the average age was 33 years with a standard deviation (SD) ±9.81. Fifty six (56%) percent of the research participants were males, while 44% were females. The duration of surgery was 45 minutes on average with SD±5.94. Mean BMI was 25 Kg/m² with SD±4.77. Twenty percent (20%) of patients did not use proper medicine while 80% patients had used proper medicine. Seventy-nine (79%) percent of patients had wound care but 21% of patients did not have wound care. Moreover, 18% of patients had SSI and 82% of patients did not have SSI. Conclusion: We concluded from our study that the frequency of surgical site infections (SSIs) was around 18% after the open appendectomy for acute appendicitis.