Abstract
Objective: To investigate the prevalence of surgical site infection (SSI), which is a major complication of surgical treatment, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with biological agents.
Methods: This study included 207 patients with RA who underwent surgical treatment. Of these, 30 patients were male and 177 patients were female. Biological agents were used to treat 75 patients, and 132 patients were treated with conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). We compared the prevalence of SSI between these groups using Fisher's exact test.
Results: The prevalence of SSI was 5.3% in the biological agents group and 1.6% in the conventional DMARDs group, respectively. No statistically significant difference was observed between the prevalence in these two groups. However, regarding joint replacement surgery, the prevalence of SSI in the biological agents group was 11.4%, which was significantly higher than that of the conventional DMARDs group (1.2%; odds ratio = 9.93, P = 0.03).
Conclusion: Careful perioperative management is required to prevent SSI in patients with RA undergoing joint replacement surgery who are treated with biological agents.
