Prevention of Surgical Site Infection After Cesarean Delivery
Status:
Withdrawn
Trial end date:
2017-02-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
There are approximately 1.4 million cesarean deliveries in the United States each year, and
an average of 1250 elective cesarean deliveries each year at the Brigham and Women's Hospital
(BWH) in Boston, Massachusetts. Among cesarean deliveries performed at BWH, approximately 2%
of patients are diagnosed with a surgical site infection (SSI). Because SSI is associated
with significant morbidity and increased cost of care, numerous guidelines exist to guide
preoperative administration of prophylactic antibiotics. However, there are no
recommendations for the choice of antiseptic solution for prevention of SSI. Among the
currently popular antisepsis preparations, chlorhexidine-alcohol (CA) is known to decrease
SSI in non-obstetric surgeries. However, the time required for CA to dry (~ 3 min) to
minimize flammability risk is disadvantageous in the setting of emergent cesarean delivery.
Many institutions use povidone-iodine, another antisepsis preparation that does not require
the mandatory drying time. Our randomized study aims to compare the incidence of SSI in
patients receiving either CA or PI during elective cesarean delivery, and we hypothesize that
CA would be associated with a lower incidence of SSI.