Introduction and Objectives: We studied the incidence rate of surgical wound infections (SWI) after total hip replacement (THR).

Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study of a cohort in a hospital of the Autonomous Community of Madrid in which we included all the patients that underwent THR as elective surgery over a 6 month period with a maximum follow-up of 2 years. We carried out an estimation based on a sample with a potency of 95%, and a confidence of 90%, with losses of 5% of a prevalence below 5%. We estimated we would need 57 patients to perform the study.

Results: We studied 61 patients. The percentage of men was 45.9% and of women 54.1% (p> 0.05). Mean age was 63.1 years (SD=14.4) and 72.1 years (SD=8.3) respectively (p< 0.05). The rate of infection in this series was 4.9% with a standardized ratio of 1.57% in relation to national rates of infection. Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequent pathogen. No risk factor was identified.

Discussion and Conclusions: Measures to prevent infection do not always guarantee the suppression of surgical wound infections. It is the responsibility of health care personnel to follow preventive and surveillance systems as closely as possible, since they not only act as a guarantee for patients but also for the system. Therefore, they must remain vigilant and study all cases in an attempt to continue decreasing the incidence of infection.