Protective effects of vacuum sealing techniques on intracranial drainage-associated infections

Abstract

Abstract Background. External craniocerebral drain (ECD)-associated intracranial infections have high incidence rates in neurological intensive care patients. At present, it has been reported in the literature that the infection rate associated with external ventricular drainage (EVD) ranges between 1% and 40%. The incidence of ECD infections is higher than that of EVD-related infections. We sought to determine whether the infection rate associated with vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) would be lower than that associated with standard traditional dressings. This retrospective analysis compared the differences in the infection rates between the two techniques. Methods. A total of 202 patients (aged 18-85 years, mean 60.7 years) were included in the final analysis. We compared the intracranial infection rates between 121 patients with standard conventional dressings and 81 patients with VSD by testing their cerebrospinal fluid. Results. The intracranial infection rate was 15.45% in the traditional standard dressing group and 1.38% in the VSD group. The onset time of intracranial infection was the highest on days 4 and 5, with 6 cases each. Conclusions. Compared with the conventionaltreatment of ECD-related wounds, the application of VSD to ECD wounds provides superior protection from the development of ECD-related infections. In this small contemporary series of patients, the infection rate following VSD placement according to one protocol was 1.38%.