Skin Preparation for Elective Foot and Ankle Surgery
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2025-12-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Surgical site infections (SSIs) make about 31% of all nosocomial infections and they are the
most common hospital-acquired infection. For foot and ankle elective interventions, SSI rate
is reported between 0.4% and 3.6%. This study will investigate the effectiveness of skin
cleaning with isopropyl alcohol and scrubbing with chlorhexidine soap before standard skin
preparation in reducing microbial load and surgical site infections for elective foot and
ankle surgeries. Current standard of care includes skin preparation with iodine or
chlorhexidine solution prior to sterile draping and the start of surgery. Standard of care
will be applied to all patients. The use of an additional "pre-scrub" with isopropyl alcohol
and scrubbing with chlorhexidine soap will be applied to the experimental group. The control
group will receive only the standard of care skin preparation with iodine or chlorhexidine
solution prior to draping.