• G Chan, E Iliopoulos, A Jain, M Turki, and A Trompeter.
• Department of Trauma & Orthopaedics, St. Richards Hospital, Chichester, United Kingdom; Department of Trauma & Orthopaedics, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, United Kingdom. Electronic address: gareth.chan@wsht.nhs.uk.
• Injury. 2019 Nov 1; 50 (11): 2089-2092.

IntroductionSurgical fixation of tibial plateau fractures has been shown to improve long-term functional outcomes, but a major complication is that of postoperative infection which can be deleterious to long-term outcomes. This study aims to assess the impact of common comorbidities on the risk of postoperative infection.MethodA retrospective study of 210 consecutive operatively treated patients, treated at two Level 1 Trauma Centres over a 27-month period was performed. Records were analysed to assess the presence of the study factors; smoking, alcohol intake >13 units/week, diabetes, and BMI > 30. The impact of these factors on infection was assessed with univariate and multivariate analyses.Results175 patients were included in the study, 56.6% male with a mean age of 46.9 years (± 18.2 years). Excessive alcohol consumption of >13 units/week was the only significant risk factor for postoperative infection (p = 0.05) on multivariate analysis.ConclusionThis study has identified excessive alcohol consumption as the only independent risk factor for postoperative infection in patients with all types of tibial plateau fracture treated with operative fixation. No relationship between smoking, diabetes nor obesity was found for postoperative infection.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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