Prevalence of Surgical Site Infection (SSI) and Its Association With Vitamin D Deficiency
Cureus 16(1): e52015. DOI 10.7759/cureus.52015
Mohammad Eid M. Mahfouz 1 , Hanan S. Althobaiti 1 , Aryam F. Alqthami 1 , Khulud A. Alamri 1 , Yousef S. Mahfouz 1 , Mahmoud M. Elashkar 2 , Maryam M. Althomali 2 , Salah Al-Din M. Mahfouz 3
1. Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Taif University, Taif, SAU 2. Department of Infection Prevention and Control, King Faisal Medical Complex, Taif, SAU 3. Department of Endoscopy, King Faisal Medical Complex, Taif, SAU
Background and aim: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are one of the significant complications detected after surgical procedures. Recent studies have highlighted the antimicrobial, wound-healing, and immunological properties of vitamin D. Therefore, this study examined the association between levels of preoperative vitamin D and SSI occurrence in Saudi Arabia.
Methods: We conducted this retrospective observational study among patients who underwent surgery at King Faisal Medical Complex, Saudi Arabia. We included data from patients who underwent surgery between January 2021 and October 2023 in the study. If vitamin D concentrations were not measured at admission, patients were excluded from the final analysis. The researchers performed statistical analysis using the computer program Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). The significant level was considered when the p-value was less than 0.05.
Results: The study included 130 patients with a mean (SD) age of 26.98 (9.3) years. Most patients were females (n = 92, 70.8%), had diabetes mellitus disease (n = 121, 93.1%), had a vitamin D deficiency (<30 ng/dl) (n = 106, 81.5%), and underwent cesarean section (n = 80, 61.5%). The mean (SD) vitamin D level among patients was 19.9 (9.7) ng/dl, and the mean (SD) hemoglobin level was almost normal (12.30 (2.1) g/dl). Out of 40.8% (n = 53) of patients, the most detected pathogenic bacteria was Escherichia coh, followed by Staphylococcus aureus (n = 11, 44%, and n = 7, 25%, respectively). Furthermore, vitamin D deficiency significantly impacted positive SSI; patients with insufficient levels had a higher infection rate compared to those with sufficient levels (n = 58, 54.7% vs. n = 7, 29.2%, p-value = 0.024). A longer surgery duration did not increase the risk of SSI (p-value = 0.047). Patients with class 3 wounds were more prone to SSI than those with class 2 wounds (n = 12, 100% vs. n = 53, 44.9%, p-value<0.001).
Conclusion: This study provides important evidence supporting the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and SSI incidence. Patients with lower levels of vitamin D reported a higher incidence of SSIs. Healthcare providers should pay attention to the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among patients undergoing surgery. Screening for vitamin D deficiency and implementing convenient interventions to optimize vitamin D levels could help reduce the incidence of SSIs. Further research with larger sample sizes, more diverse populations, and different surgery types is necessary to validate these findings and explore additional factors influencing SSI development.
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VitaminDWiki – Trauma and surgery category contains:
Trauma and Surgery category hasLarge dose Vitamin D before surgery was found to help by 35 studies
Vitamin D is needed before most surgeries – many studies and RCTs
4.8 X more likely to die within 28 days of ICU if low Vitamin D - Jan 2024
Sepsis is both prevented and treated by Vitamin D - many studies
Thyroidectomy and Vitamin D - many studies
Orthopaedic surgeries need Vitamin D – many studies
Cancer - After diagnosis chemotherapy
TBI OR "Traumatic Brain Injury - 21 in title as of Sept 2022
Superbug (Clostridium difficile) Infections strongly associated with low vitamin D - many studies
Glutamine and Omega-3 have also been proven to help several traumas/surgeries
Note: Vitamin D also prevents the need for various surgeries and Omega-3 prevents many concussions/TBI
Trauma and Surgery is associated with 22 other VitaminDWiki categories
Such as loading dose 33, Mortality 23, Infant-Child 21 Intervention 19 Cardiovascular 13, Injection 13 in Sept 2022
Did you know?
- You can easily improve outcomes of many planned surgeries by increasing vitamin D ahead of time
- Cancer surgery is the only known exception - extra Vitamin D is OK only if doctor reduces the chemo doses
- A loading dose of Vitamin D also improves unplanned hospital admissions
- Improvements include
- Shorter recovery time
- Shorter ICU time
- Reduced deaths – in hospital, next month, next year
- Reduced Sepsis = blood poisoning = infection
16+ VitaminDWiki Trauma-Surgery pages have INFECTION in the title
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VitaminDWiki - Infections and low vitamin D - many studies
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