Incidence of hospital infections following cardiovascular surgical operations

Aim: regardless of type of operations, all patients who underwent cardiac and vascular operations in our clinic between january 2007 and april 2010 were included in this study. the survelliance and incidence of infections in our hospital were determined by considering nosocomial infections. materials and methods: of the all operations performed in our hospital during the above-mentioned period, 2,360 were involved in the study. for various complaints or signs/symptoms, 638 culture specimens (2.65 specimen/person) were collected from 240 patients (10.2%), of which 199 specimens (31.2%) from 126 patients (5.4%) were culture-positive. results: according to culture-positivity and clinical fi ndings, 146 nosocomial infections that needs to be treated (78 surgical site infections and 49 respiratory tract infections) were detected in 126 patients. most of nosocomial infections was determined in patients who underwent open cardiac surgery. staphylococcus aureus was the most frequent microorganism in surgical site infections; and acinetobacter baumanii was the most resistant microorganism for all infections. conclusion: in the light of these results, new precautions were taken to prevent or decrease infections in our hospital, and priority was given to in-service training.