Preliminary Report of the Use of Skin Sealant to Prevent Surgical Site Infection in Respiratory Surgery

Abstract

Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the severe complications in thoracic surgery. Skin sealants are skin microbe sealants that physically confine the skin microflora that remains after disinfection, and they have the effect of preventing bacterial migration and expression, thus preventing SSI. There have been some reports that a skin sealant is effective for preventing SSI in cardiovascular surgery and orthopedic surgery. However, in thoracic surgery, its usefulness is still unknown. In 146 cases of thoracotomy surgery under standard sterilization from September 2012 to March 2013, there were 107 cases with risk factors for SSI onset, of which 7 developed SSIs. Therefore, skin sealants were used in 30 cases that were judged as at risk for SSI from among 120 cases of thoracotomy from April 2013 to September 2013. Similar to the 107 cases, the 30 cases were high-risk cases for SSI onset, but no SSI cases were observed. It has been suggested that skin sealants may also decrease the incidence of SSI in the field of thoracic surgery.