Perioperative hypothermia and incidence of surgical wound infection: a bibliographic study

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this review article was to understand and analyzethe scientific production related to the occurrence of perioperativehypothermia and the incidence of infection on the surgical site. For thispurpose, a search was conducted in the databases LILACS, MEDLINE,PubMed, CINAHL and Cochrane, using the health science descriptorsDECS, from 2004 to 2009. A total of 91 articles were found. Aftereliminating duplicate items and using selection criteria for inclusion,six manuscripts remained for analysis. The studies were classifiedas retrospective, prospective, case studies, and clinical trials. Afteranalysis, the majority of studies showed that hypothermia must beprevented during the perioperative period to reduce complicationsin the healing process of the surgical incision. Therefore, unadvertedhypothermia directly influences in surgical site healing, increasing theincidence of infection in the surgical wound