5 6 S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E M A Y 2 0 1 5
skin flora colonization. In a systematic review published by the Cochrane
Collaboration in February 2015, Webster and Osborne found that chlorhexidine
bathing before surgery was more likely to reduce surgical site infections than no
bathing did. It must be noted, however, that 3 randomized controlled trials
(comprising a total of 1,192 patients), which compared bathing with chlorhexi-
dine to bathing with household bar soap, found no difference in SSIs between
the 2 approaches.
OSM
Dr. Sidhwa (feroze.sidhwa@bmc.org) is a surgery resident at Boston
University Medical Center and a research fellow at Children's Hospital Boston.
