[Early bacteriological diagnosis of infections after osteosynthesis (author's transl)].

Postoperative infections after osteosynthesis belong to the most serious complications in traumatology. Efforts to prevent this danger by routine antibiotic prophylaxis are mainly rejected nowadays. Instead, it is studies whether infections can be diagnosed by bacteriological culture of secretions from Redon drains in patients with osteosynthesis for the purpose of starting an early specific antibiotic therapy. Bacteria were cultured from secretions of wounds in 11.3% of samples from 177 patients. Staph. aureus was found most frequently and was responsible for most of the postoperative infections (Tab. 1).