Surgical Site Infections After Laparoscopic and Open Cholecystectomies in Community Hospitals

摘要

To the Editor—Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has become the preferred method of performing gallbladder surgery over the past decade. Laparoscopic cholecystectomies are associated with shorter hospital stay and convalescence, less pain and scarring, and lower rates of postoperative surgical site infection (SSI) than open cholecystectomies.1-4 The fact that laparoscopic cholecystectomies are associated with fewer SSIs intuitively makes sense: laparoscopy access ports are short in length and only a fraction of the length of the incision used in open laparotomy. Biscione et al.5 reported in the September issue of the journal that patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy had lower rates of incisional SSI than patients who underwent open cholecystectomy; however, rates of deep incisional/organ space infections were similar in these 2 groups.5 The latter finding differs from our experience and from the results reported in the existing literature, for several reasons.