For their study, researchers analyzed more than 5,100 patients in a heart surgery registry. Excluding patients who were infected before surgery, researchers found 300 infections were classified as major infections (occurring in 6 percent of patients) and 461 infections were minor (in 8.1 percent of patients). Minor infections included urinary tract infections and superficial incision site infections.
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Of the major infections, pneumonia occurred most frequently (2.4 percent of all patients), followed by bloodstream infections (1.1 percent), C. difficile colitis (1.0 percent) and deep incision surgical site infections (0.5 percent).
Several risk factors appeared to increase the risk of developing infection, including congestive heart failure, hypertension, chronic lung disease and length of cardiopulmonary bypass time. The study also revealed that most infections occur approximately two weeks after surgery, not one week as physicians previously thought.
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