Prevalence of surgical wound infection and related factors in patients after long bone surgery: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

The goal of this systematic review and meta‐analysis is to provide an overview of the prevalence of surgical wound infection and related factors in patients after long bone surgery. A comprehensive, systematic search was conducted in different international electronic databases, such as Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science and Persian electronic databases such as Iranmedex and Scientific Information Database using keywords extracted from Medical Subject Headings such as “Prevalence”, “Surgical wound infection”, “Surgical site infection” and “Orthopedics” from the earliest to the May 1, 2023. The appraisal tool for cross‐sectional studies (AXIS tool) evaluates the quality of the included studies. A total of 71 854 patients undergoing long bone surgery participated in 12 studies. The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients who underwent long bone surgery reported in the 12 studies was 3.3% (95% CI: 1.5%–7.2%; I (2) = 99.39%; p < 0.001). The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in male and female patients who underwent long bone surgery was 4.6% (95% CI: 1.7%–11.7%; p < 0.001; I (2) = 99.34%) and 2.6% (95% CI: 1.0%–6.3%; I (2) = 98.84%; p < 0.001), respectively. The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients with femur surgery sites reported in nine studies was 3.7% (95% CI: 2.1–6.4%; I (2) = 93.43%; p < 0.001). The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in open and close fractures was 16.4% (95% CI: 8.2%–30.2%; I (2) = 95.83%; p < 0.001) and 2.9% (95% CI: 1.5%–5.5%; I (2) = 96.40%; p < 0.001), respectively. The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension (HTN) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) was 4.6% (95% CI: 2.3%–8.9%; I (2) = 81.50%; p < 0.001), 2.7% (95% CI: 1.2%–6.0%; I (2) = 83.82%; p < 0.001) and 3.0% (95% CI: 1.4%–6.4%; I (2) = 69.12%; p = 0.006), respectively. In general, the different prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients undergoing surgical treatment after long bone fracture may be caused by underlying factors (gender and co‐morbidity) and fracture‐related factors (surgery site and type of fracture).