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Evidence summaries

Use of Plastic Adhesive Drapes during Surgery for Preventing Surgical Site Infection

Use of intraoperative, incisional adhesive drapes appear not to reduce surgical site infection rates compared with no adhesive drapes and may increase them. Level of evidence: "B"

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 7 studies with a total of 4 195 subjects. 5 studies compared adhesive drapes with no drape and 2 studies compared iodine-impregnated adhesive drapes with no drape. A significantly higher proportion of patients in the adhesive drape group developed a surgical site infection when compared with no drape (RR 1.23, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.48; 5 studies, n=3 082). Iodine-impregnated adhesive drapes compared with no drape had no effect on the surgical site infection rate (RR 1.03, 95% CI 0.064 to 1.66; 2 studies, n=1 113).

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study quality (unclear allocation concealment and lack of blinding of outcome assessment).

References

  • Webster J, Alghamdi A. Use of plastic adhesive drapes during surgery for preventing surgical site infection. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2015;(4):CD006353. [PubMed] . [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords