EVALUATION OF SURGICAL SITE INFECTION IN PATIENTS WITH POSTOPERATIVE DEXAMETHASONE AFTER POSTERIOR SPINAL SURGERY

Background: Surgical site infection is a potentially fatal side effect of spine surgeries. This study aimed to evaluate surgical site infection in patients receiving postoperative dexamethasone following posterior spinal surgery.Materials & Methods: This was an observational study done in Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar from Sep: 01, 2020 to Feb: 28, 2021. Forty six patients were enrolled and divided equally in two groups. Group A patients who were given dexamethasone post operatively, while Group B patients were given no such treatment. Surgical site infection (SSI) after posterior spinal surgery was assessed on clinical features. Any patient complaining of post-op moderate to severe backache that is not relieved with rest, and had difficulty in movements, along with local surgical site soreness, was labeled as having SSI. The SPSS version 25.0 was used to analyze all of the gathered data.Results: The overall mean age of the 46 patients was 41.3% for female and 58.7% for male patients, with a range of 41.80 +/- 8.90 years. Six (20.0%) of the patients in group A experienced postoperative deep wound infection. While in group B patients only 2 patients experienced postoperative deep wound infection. Statistical analysis was done that shows P-Value of 0.69 between the two groups that was statistically insignificant.Conclusion: Incidence of documented infection rate in the literature after straightforward laminectomy surgeries is 1-2%, but we observed much higher ratio (20%) in patients receiving dexamethasone. This may be due to so many reasons but we recommend further studies to prove that.