ArticleThe Lancet regional health. Europe2025
A care bundle added to standard care versus standard care for the prevention of surgical site infections after abdominal surgery (EPO
Article in The Lancet regional health. Europe, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Costs and health burden of surgical site infections and anastomotic leakage in major abdominal surgery.BJS open · 2026Trial
- Prophylactic incisional wound irrigation with aqueous chlorhexidine gluconate vs aqueous povidone iodine for prevention of surgical site infection in elective abdominal surgery.Infection prevention in practice · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Surgical site infections (SSI) are common. We selected five interventions from recent SSI prevention guidelines, to form the Enhanced PeriOperative Care and Health program (EPO Methods: The EPO Findings: Between March 1st, 2016, and March 26th, 2020, 1777 patients were included. The intervention group included 869 patients (mean age 63.1, 467 female and 402 male) versus 908 in the control group (mean age 64.0, 530 female and 378 male). The incidence of SSI was 18.4% (160/869) in the intervention and 18.9% (172/908) in the control group; relative risk 0.98 (95% CI: 0.81-1.18) in the intention-to-treat analysis and 0.91 (95% CI: 0.60-1.37) in the per-protocol analysis. The percentage of patients with a serious adverse event was 33.3% (289/869) versus 33.5% (304/908), RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.87-1.23. Interpretation: In a high-income health care setting, a care bundle did not lead to a lower incidence of surgical site infections when added to standard care including preoperative systemic antibiotic prophylaxis and alcohol-based surgical skin preparation. Considering the persistent high risk of SSI, research into interventions that may help to reduce this risk remains urgently needed. Funding: The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW), and co-financed by Innovatiefonds Zorgverzekeraars, and Ethicon.
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