Prevention of Infection: The Wound Factors

The important role of appropriate surgical wound management for preventing serious complications such as periprosthetic joint infection is recently better appreciated. Most of the complications related to surgical wound are fortunately minor problems. However, an astute orthopedic surgeon would not underestimate these seemingly inconsequential problems and should implement every possible strategy to prevent or mitigate risk factors that are known to lead to adverse outcome. Moreover, should adverse circumstances occur in the process of wound healing, timely and appropriate nonsurgical and surgical interventions would lead to favorable outcomes in the majority of cases. Expanding scientific evidence and technologic advances will hopefully provide us with better armamentarium for surgical wound management.