Staphylococcus aureus surgical site infection rates in 5 European countries

Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. 2023 Sep 19;12(1):104. doi: 10.1186/s13756-023-01309-w.

Abstract

Objective: To determine the overall and procedure-specific incidence of surgical site infections (SSI) caused by Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) as well as risk factors for such across all surgical disciplines in Europe.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort of patients with surgical procedures performed at 14 European centres in 2016, with a nested case-control analysis. S. aureus SSI were identified by a semi-automated crossmatching bacteriological and electronic health record data. Within each surgical procedure, cases and controls were matched using optimal propensity score matching.

Results: A total of 764 of 178 902 patients had S. aureus SSI (0.4%), with 86.0% of these caused by methicillin susceptible and 14% by resistant pathogens. Mean S. aureus SSI incidence was similar for all surgical specialties, while varying by procedure.

Conclusions: This large procedure-independent study of S. aureus SSI proves a low overall infection rate of 0.4% in this cohort. It provides proof of principle for a semi-automated approach to utilize big data in epidemiological studies of healthcare-associated infections. Trials registration The study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov under NCT03353532 (11/2017).

Keywords: Hospital acquired infection; Staphylococcus aureus; Surgical site infection.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Europe / epidemiology
  • Humans
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Staphylococcal Infections* / epidemiology
  • Staphylococcus aureus
  • Surgical Wound Infection* / epidemiology

Associated data

  • ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT03353532