According to the study authored by Dr. Shirin Towfigh, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, only about 3 percent of the appendectomy patients whose incision sites were swabbed with cotton every day developed an infection. Of the patients whose surgical sites were swabbed daily with iodine, 19 percent developed an infection at the site.
The reason for this dramatic decrease in the rate of infections, according to researchers, is that cotton swabs absorb any contaminated fluid, allowing it to drain from the soft tissues and reduce the amount of bacteria at the site.
Dr. Towfigh also found that patients in the cotton swab group had less pain following their surgery compared to those whose incision sites were swabbed with iodine. Additionally, their average hospital stay was only about five days, compared with the average seven day stay of those in the iodine group. The study also noted that the cotton swab group also experienced better cosmetic healing of their incision.
According to the report, over 500,000 surgical site infections occur annually in the U.S. Many of these infections can be prevented with proper management of the incision site by doctors and nurses.
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