A new approach to the problem of surgical wound infections in clean operations.

A study was made of the risk factors causing a high incidence of surgical wound infections in clean operations. Identification of these factors in the preoperative stage allows the patients to be divided into two categories: a high risk (about 10% of patients for surgery) and low risk. By giving antibiotic prophylaxis only to patients at high risk, the incidence of postoperative infections can be reduced, decreasing the number of extra days in hospital and consequently lowering costs. This is a new approach to the problem of surgical wound infections since not only is it based on the usual classification of operations into clean, clean-contaminated, contaminated and dirty, but it also takes into account the defensive capacity of the target of the infection: the patient.