(HealthDay News) -- Obese patients are at a significantly increased risk for surgical site infections after undergoing partial or full removal of the colon, a new study finds.

It included 7,020 patients, aged 18 to 64, who had either partial or total colectomy for colon cancer, diverticulitis or inflammatory bowel disease between 2002 and 2008. Of those patients, 1,243 were obese.

The overall rate of surgical site infections was 10.3 percent, but the rate was higher in obese patients (14.5 percent) than in non-obese patients (9.5 percent). After adjusting for a number of factors, the researchers calculated that obese patients were 60 percent more likely to develop surgical site infections than non-obese patients.

The average cost of colectomy for all the patients was $16,399, but the average cost for obese patients was about $295 more than for non-obese patients.

The researchers also found that surgical site infections greatly increased the cost of the procedure. The average total cost for patients who developed surgical site infections was $31,933, compared to $14,608 for patients without infection. Read more...

AyurGold for Healthy Blood

Source:
http://anti-aging-for-today.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss