Increasing rates of laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery and decreasing rates of surgical site infections: an observational study in Japan from 2012–2017

BACKGROUND: Surgical site infections (SSI) are the most common healthcare-associated infection, and gastrointestinal surgery is frequently followed by a high incidence of SSI. Epidemiological analysis of the temporal trends in SSI following gastrointestinal surgery has yet to be performed in Japan. Our purpose was to descriptively investigate these trends. METHODS: Extracting national surveillance data from the Japan Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (JANIS) system, we analyzed the frequency of SSI events following gastrointestinal surgery, which consisted of seven surgical procedures, from 2012–2017. We calculated the standardized infection ratio to compute risk-adjusted SSI frequency, and used the trend test to detect time-dependent changes. RESULTS: The frequency of SSI events, except for those associated with surgery of the upper gastrointestinal tract, revealed a decreasing time-dependent trend. The use of laparoscopic surgery increased dramatically over time (p < 0.01 for the six applicable surgical sites), while the frequency of SSI events during laparoscopic surgery remained unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: The increasing use of laparoscopic surgery was identified, and the observation coincided with the decreasing trend in SSI, especially in lower gastrointestinal tract surgery. If the relationship is causal, the overall SSI incidence among previously healthy individuals is expected to decrease, because the use of laparoscopic surgery has large growth potential in Japan. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12893-021-01373-2.