Short- and long-term mortality after deep sternal wound infection following cardiac surgery: experiences from SWEDEHEART

Deep sternal wound infection (DSWI) is a serious complication after open-heart surgery. We investigated the association between DSWI and short- and long-term all-cause mortality in a large well-defined nationwide population.

A retrospective, nationwide cohort study including 114676 consecutive patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and/or valve surgery was conducted from 1997 to 2015 in Sweden.

Short- and long-term mortality was compared between DSWI patients and non-DSWI patients. Median follow-up was 8.0 years (range 0-18.9).

1516 patients (1.3%) developed DSWI, most commonly in patients undergoing combined CABG and valve surgery (2.1%).

DSWI patients were older and had more disease burden than non-DSWI patients. The unadjusted cumulative mortality was higher in the DSWI group compared with the non-DSWI group at 90 days 7.9% vs 3.0% and at 1 year 12.8% vs 4.5%.

The adjusted absolute difference in risk of death was 2.3% at 90 days and 4.7% at 1 year.

Both short- and long-term mortality risks are higher in DSWI patients compared to non-DSWI patients.

These results stress the importance of preventing these infections and careful postoperative monitoring of DSWI patients.

Link to the study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33623983/