Abstract
Purpose :
A retrospective case review, presented at ARVO in 2012, of 294 consecutive patients concluded that an aluminum foil drape was as effective as a standard surgical paper drape at minimizing the risk of wound infection in oculoplastic surgical procedures. The purpose of this retrospective case review is to compare the long-term efficacy of aluminum foil draping technique versus standard surgical paper draping technique at minimizing the risk of wound infection in select oculoplastic surgeries using a larger sample size. The cost of each drape is reported as well.
Methods :
A retrospective case series of 991 consecutive patients, between the ages 30 and 90, who underwent ectropion or entropion repair, levator resection or advancement, or blepharoplasty by a single surgeon using either an aluminum foil drape (n=748) in an office-based surgery suite or a standard surgical paper drape (n=243) in a hospital-based ambulatory surgery center was performed. The rate of wound infection in the two groups at postoperative days 1, 7, and 10 was evaluated. Statistical analysis (2-sample t test) could not be applied due to the absence of any difference in the data from the two groups. A cost analysis was also performed comparing the two draping techniques.
Results :
Seven hundred and forty-eight cases (334 blepharoplasty, 283 levator repair/advancement, 14 ectropion repair, 117 entropion repair) were performed in an office-based surgery suite using an aluminum foil drape. Two hundred and forty-three cases (71 blepharoplasty, 48 levator repair/advancement, 73 ectropion repair, 51 entropion repair) were performed in a hospital-based ambulatory surgery center using a standard surgical paper drape. There was no incident (0) of wound infection in the 991 cases reviewed at postoperative day 1, 7, or 10. There was no difference in the rate of wound infection between the two groups. The cost per surgical procedure was $0.63 for the aluminum foil drape and $28.25 for the standard surgical drape.
Conclusions :
Aluminum foil draping technique continues to be as effective as standard surgical draping technique at minimizing the risk of wound infection in oculoplastic surgical procedures in the outpatient setting. The cost per surgical procedure of the aluminum foil drape is significantly less than the cost of the standard surgical paper drape.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.