Surgical treatment of spinal bone infections: prognostic significance of osteosynthetic material.

Objective - Post-operative infection in spinal surgery is a major complicat ion, affecting 6% of the procedures, It is suspected that he presence of sp inal foreign body increases this infection risk. The authors had for aim to compare the outcome of spinal surgery infection according to the foreign b ody's presence or not A single surgeon and a specialist in infectious disea ses managed all the cases. Methods - A retrospective study was performed at the University hospital of Bordeaux from 1993 to 1999. The diagnosis of infection was made by the ass ociation of infection symptoms and results of wound cultures and/or histolo gy observed during surgery. Results - During the study period, 17 patients became infected with a total number of 26 infections. When the foreign body was not removed, recurrence occurred in 78.6% of cases vs. 8.3% in the group with its removal (P < 0.0 01). Conclusion - The risk of infection in spinal surgery is increased by the pr esence of foreign bodies. in the majority of cases their removal is necessa ry to obtain a favorable outcome. (C) 2000 Editions scientifiques et medica les Elsevier SAS.