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Letters to the Editor

Post-sternotomy percutaneous tracheostomy and risky multivariable analyses

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Anesthesiology, Örebro University Hospital, 701 85 Örebro, Sweden

Received 29 June 2008; accepted 16 July 2008.

^_* Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 70 6965210; fax: +46 19 611 3943. (Email: orjan.friberg@orebroll.se).

Key Words: Cardiac surgery • Postoperative complication • Sternal wound infection • Risk factors • Tracheostomy • Logistic regression analysis

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Ngaage et al. report post-sternotomy percutaneous tracheostomy (PDT) to be associated with an approximately three-fold risk for deep sternal wound infections (SWIs) (OR 3.22, 95% CI 1.14–9.31, p < 0.0001) [1]. The following editorial concludes that ‘the authors have shown that early PDT should be discouraged or delayed after cardiac surgery’ [2]. We are less convinced.

There are several potential explanations to the increased incidence of SWI that the authors do not discuss. The majority of SWIs develop after discharge and might even go unrecognised for the cardiac surgical unit unless there is a dedicated post-discharge surveillance program [3]. . . [Full Text of this Article]