Pediatric surgical site infection in the developing world: a Kenyan experience.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of the current study was to determine the incidence of pediatric surgical site infections(SSIs) at an academic children’s hospital in rural sub-Saharan Africa and to identify potentially modifiable risk factors.


METHODS
Prospectively collected data from 1,008 surgical admissions to Bethany Kids Kijabe Hospital (Kijabe, Kenya) were analyzed retrospectively. Follow-up data were available in 940 subjects.


RESULTS
SSIs occurred in 6.8% of included subjects(N = 64). Superficial (69%) and deep (29%) infections of the back (38%) and head (25%) were most common. When comparing children who developed SSI to those who did not, we found that wound contamination classification and duration of operation were the only variables with significant differences between groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Our rate of SSI among pediatric patients insub-Saharan Africa is the lowest reported in the literature to date. More work is needed to identify modifiable risk factors for pediatric SSI in low- and middle-income countries.
Department of Surgery, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Aurora, CO 80045, USA. james.wood@ucdenver.edu
James H
JH
Wood
Peter M
PM
Nthumba
Edita
E
Stepita-Poenaru
Dan
D
Poenaru
D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007630:Kenya / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013530:Surgical Wound Infection / Q000453:epidemiology*