A meta‐analysis of the effect of different body mass index on surgical wound infection after colorectal surgery

We conducted a meta‐analysis to assess the effect of different body mass index on surgical wound infection after colorectal surgery. A systematic literature search up to November 2022 was performed and 2349 related studies were evaluated. The chosen studies comprised 15 595 colorectal surgery subjects participated in the selected studies' baseline trials; 4390 of them were obese according to the selected body mass index cut‐off used to measure obesity in the selected studies, while 11 205 were nonobese. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to assess the effect of different body mass index on wound infection after colorectal surgery by the dichotomous methods with a random or fixed effect model. The body mass index ≥30 kg/m(2) resulted in significantly higher surgical wound infection after colorectal surgery (OR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.46–2.11, P < .001) compared with the body mass index <30 kg/m(2). The body mass index ≥25 kg/m(2) resulted in significantly higher surgical wound infection after colorectal surgery (OR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.40–1.92, P < .001) compared with the body mass index <25 kg/m(2). The subjects with higher body mass index had a significantly higher surgical wound infection after colorectal surgery compared with the subjects with normal body mass index.