The need for hair removal in paediatric brain tumour surgery?

Richards, Alexandra, Zaben, Malik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7446-4532, Patel, Chirag and Leach, Paul 2024. The need for hair removal in paediatric brain tumour surgery? British Journal of Neurosurgery 38 (2) , pp. 346-348. 10.1080/02688697.2021.1872777

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Abstract

Introduction Preoperative hair removal is conventional practice within neurosurgery in an attempt to maintain antisepsis. However, there is a lack of evidence to suggest that it makes a difference with regards to infection. This article aims to relate preoperative hair removal to SSIs for paediatric patients. Methods and Materials A retrospective analysis was conducted from a single paediatric neurosurgical database at the University Hospital of Wales. Patients were grouped according to whether they underwent preoperative hair removal or not. Findings were reviewed in light of the previously published literature. Results One hundred eighty two paediatric intracranial tumours were operated on between November 2008 and 2019. A total of twenty-six patients (14%) developed an infection post-operatively, of which meningitis was the most common (77%). Eighty-nine operations were undertaken without preoperative hair removal, of which there were a total of fifteen infections (17%). In the hair removal group, there were a total of eleven infections out of ninety-three operations (12%). Overall, the patients without hair removal had a higher infection rate when compared to those with hair removal (17 and 12% respectively), however, this result was not statistically significant (p-value 0.3989). Conclusion We did not find evidence that hair removal in paediatric neurosurgery effects postoperative infection risk.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG)
Publisher:	Society of British Neurological Surgeons
ISSN:	0268-8697
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	8 April 2022
Date of Acceptance:	22 December 2020
Last Modified:	17 Apr 2024 00:40
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/149121

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