Mediastinitis clinical trials

Delayed Primary Versus Late Secondary Wound Closure in Sternum Infections

Sternal osteomyelitis and poststernotomy mediastinitis is a severe and life-treating complication after the cardiac surgery. The incidence of sternal osteomyelitis ranges from 1% to 3% with a high mortality rate from 19% to 29% . The most devastating complication of the open sternum is the laceration of the right ventricle which has a very high mortality. Additionally destabilizations of the thoracic cage, prolonged immobilization, or substantial surgical trauma are further complications of the conventional strategy (4). In addition, postoperative infections after sternotomy are associated with prolonged hospital stay, increased healthcare costs and impaired quality of patient life, representing an economic and social burden. The emergence of increasing antimicrobial resistant bacteria augments the importance of postsurgical infections since the antimicrobial choices are becoming limited. Furthermore, the incidence of infection is an indicator for the quality of patient care in the international benchmark studies. Although several therapy strategies are nowadays present in clinical practice, there is a lack of evidence based surgical consensus for treatment of this surgical complication. In most case the poststernotomy mediastinitis is involving surgical revision with debridement, open dressing and/or vacuum assisted therapy. After the granulation tissue on open chest wound was achieved secondary closure and/or reconstruction with vascularized soft tissue flaps such as omentum or pectoral muscle is performed. It seems there is a need for more effective surgical treatment of poststernotomy wound infections, which may address the prolonged hospitalization and reduce number of surgical interventions and with this also perioperative morbidity. In light of this we propose a randomized study comparing new delay primary closure of the sternum to the secondary vacuum assisted closure.