SURGICAL SITE INFECTION - RATES, ETIOLOGY AND RESISTANCE PATTERNS TO ANTIMICROBIALS AMONG STRAINS ISOLATED AT RIO-DE-JANEIRO-UNIVERSITY-HOSPITAL

A 6-month prospective surveillance was conducted in the Department of General Surgery of the Rio de Janeiro University Hospital. Postoperati ve infections were classified according to CDC criteria. This study re ports a significant rate (16.9%) in surgical infections detected by su rveillance in a series where 45% of surgical interventions were classi fied as clean. The majority (52.7%) was apparent only after patient di scharge from the hospital. Bacterial cultures were obtained from 42 ou t of 55 infected wounds. Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently found pathogen (33.9%), followed by Escherichia coli (20.3%). With th e exception of S. aureus isolates, multiresistance was found in 66% of coagulase-negative staphylococci and 60% of gram-negative bacteria. T his study showed that community surveillance associated with hospital surveillance is necessary in order to determine accurate rates of surg ical site infections, and also showed that the emergence of multiresis tant bacterial strains was common among isolates of surgical infection s.