External Validation of SENIC and NNIS Scores for Predicting Wound Infection in Colorectal Surgery

Objective: We aimed to identify the ratio of Surgical Site Infection (SSI) and also the validity of the National Nosocomial Infection Survellance (NNIS) and Study on the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control (SENIC) risk indexes in colorectal surgery, among Turkish population. Background: Some problems have been reported with the power of NNIS risk index to predict the risk of surgical site infection. We aimed to validate theNNIS and SENIC risk indexes in colorectal surgery. Methods: Between January 2003 and December 2006, surgical site ?nfection survellance was performed to 107 patient who undergo colorectal surgery with NNIS and SENIC risk scales. The mean patient age was 48 years (range, 17 to 86), and 61.7% of the group (66) was female. For this patient cohort, 6 (5.6%) were diagnosed with incisional SSI. While the mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of all patients was 26.6; mean value of BMI among the patiens with SSI was 27.8.Results: 6 insicional surgical site infection were observed during the study. According to Receiver Operating Characteric (ROC) curve analyze neither NNIS with avalue of 0.70, nor SENIC with a value of 0.67 are perfect risk indexes. Conclusion: As a result both NNIS and SENIC ?s a good risk indexes but not perfect. Scarcely when NNIS and SENIC is used together to predict the SSI they forecast the development of infection better. But there is a lot of other factors that effect the development of SSI, so for excellent surveillance risk index those factors known by everyone must be added to risk index scales.