Surgical field antisepsis: a comparative study in feline surgery

Abstract

Rigorous technique of antisepsis in the surgical field is of great importance for surgical site infections (SSIs) prevention and should be based on the application of efficacious antiseptic solutions and antisepsis scrubbing techniques. The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of three antiseptics with different concentrations of chlorhexidine, also compares two different surgical field scrub techniques. This way, samples were collected before and after surgical field antisepsis of cats from colonies (n=51) undergoing elective ovariectomy. Samples were cultured and colony forming units (CFUs) were counted for comparison. A total of 123 microorganisms were observed: Staphylococcus spp. (46%), Enterococcus spp. (11%), Pseudomonas spp. (5%), Micrococcus spp. (3%), Non-pathogenic fungi (4%), Proteus spp. (2%), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (2%), Klebsiella spp. (1%), Escherichia coli (1%), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) (1%) and 24% belonged to the category of unidentified bacteria. There was a statistically significant difference between pre and post antisepsis samples for all antiseptic solutions (p<0.05), except for the linear method in the 1% chlorhexidine and 70% ethyl alcohol antiseptic group (p>0.05). In this work, there was no statistical evidence demonstrating the superiority of any of the three antiseptic solutions or the two scrub techniques used for surgical field antisepsis. In the future, further studies should be carried out in order to choose the most effective antiseptic solutions and antisepsis scrub techniques, contributing to SSIs reduction, and in this way to reduce antimicrobials use and bacterial resistance emergence. Keywords: surgery; feline; antisepsis; chlorhexidine; infection