This research aimed to identify the predisposing factors for surgical site infection related to the surgical procedure in patients submitted to a potentially contaminated elective gastrectomy, as a part of Gastric surgery, in the period between 1998 and 2002, at a public hospital in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil. Therefore, a retrospective study was carried out by means of a medical record information survey, using the following non-parametric tests for statistical data analysis: Mann-Whitney (quantitative variables) and contingency coefficient (qualitative variables). Out of the 181 cases that were examined, the occurrence of surgical site infection was detected in 17 situations (9.4%), 23.6% of which were categorized as superficial incisional infection, 52.9% as deep incisional infection and 23.6% as organ/space infection. Statistically significant differences between the groups with and without infection were found for the following variables: post-operative hospitalization period, total hospitalization period, surgery time, time to dwelling vesical catheter removal.
Surgical wound infection; Risk factors; Gastrectomy
