Chlorhexidine Gluconate Bathing Has Limited Ability to Prevent Surgical Site Infection Following Operative Fixation of Extremity and Pelvic Fractures

BACKGROUND: A preoperative chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) bath is used to reduce the risk of surgical site infection (SSI) in elective surgery, but its efficacy in the trauma setting is unknown. We compared the incidence of SSI between patients who did versus did not receive a CHG bath before operative fixation of extremity and/or pelvic fractures.

METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of the PREP-IT cluster-randomized crossover trials that enrolled patients undergoing operative treatment for open or closed extremity or pelvic fractures. Preoperative CHG bathing (yes or no) was recorded for each patient per study protocol. The association between CHG bathing and SSI within 90 days after definitive fracture surgery was assessed. We performed multivariable regression to adjust for prognostic variables. We also conducted a separate instrumental variable analysis to compare SSI rates between study sites that used CHG bathing for >90% of participants and those that used CHG bathing for <1% of participants.

RESULTS: Of the 10,103 participants (mean age, 51 ± 20 years; 47% female; 77% White; 17% Black; 4% Asian; 7% Hispanic) included in the analysis, 2,674 (26%) had a documented preoperative CHG bath and 7,429 (74%) did not. CHG bathing was not associated with a significant reduction in the odds of 90-day SSI in the multivariable (odds ratio [OR], 1.07; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.86 to 1.32; p = 0.56) or instrumental variable (OR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.62 to 1.25; p = 0.48) analyses.

CONCLUSIONS: Among adult patients who underwent extremity or pelvic fracture surgery, preoperative CHG bathing was not associated with a significant reduction in SSI.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.