Does intestinal translocation of bacteria affect the short, intermediate or long-term mortality of patients undergoing laparotomy?

Bacterial translocation has been shown to occur in surgical patients and al though its significance is uncertain, it may have a role in the causation o f sepsis, There is considerable controversy about the effect of translocati on on postoperative mortality because the available evidence is contradicto ry. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of bacterial translocat ion on early, intermediate and late mortality in patients undergoing laparo tomy. Our results showed that in a series of 495 patients, bacterial translocatio n occurred in 86 (17%). The number of deaths in translocators and non-trans locators was 36 and 144 respectively (chi (2) = 1.30, p = 0.25). Trends in Kaplan-Meir curves suggested that survival in translocators was lower than in non-translocators but these trends were not significant in the short (p = 0.14) intermediate (p = 0.15) or long term (p = 0.24, log-rank test). From the analysis of our results we concluded that bacterial translocation is a common occurrence in surgical patients but it does not have an adverse effect on postoperative mortality. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc, All righ ts reserved.