Prevention of surgical site infections

Surgical site infections (SSI) are a major healthcare burden throughout the world and prevention is paramount in reducing the impact of this common category of healthcare associated infection. SSI may be classified as superficial incisional, deep incisional or organ/space and are caused by both patient and procedural factors. UK guidelines on prevention were published in 2008 and the World Health Organization has recently published guidelines in 2016 which are summarized here.