Ninety hundred and six patients with varied pathology (43% coronarian, 37% valvular, 17% congenital and 3% others) between december 1987 and december 1989, underwent cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. In the intra-hospitalar postoperative'period there were nineteen cases of partial or total dehiscence of median thoracotomy (2%) which occurred, as an average, within the first week, being reoperated within a third week. In all cases, wound cultures showed predominance of gram positive bacteria and in few of them gram negative bacteria or fungii were found. There was only one case in which no infective agent was isolated. In this patient group, the existance of pre-disponent factors were observed, such as diabetes mellitus, obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and prolonged surgery time (average: beyond six hours). There was predominance of adult patients whose ages varied from forty to sixty seven years, with median age of fifty three years (89%). In 84% of the patients, internal mammary artery dissection had been carried out, to be used as vascular graft in surgical revascularization of the miocardium. Other than general therapeutic measures like local and specific systemic antibiotic therapy (to sterelize the infected wound), patients were taken to surgery proceeding with cleansing and debridement of surgical planes including the sternum, leaving in some cases continuous irrigation with povidine-iodine solution. A miocutaneous flap was rotated in two patients who were refractive to treatment. Of five cases with mediastinitis, three died because of multiple organ failure and sepsis. The remaining group presented favorable evolution and were discharged three weeks after surgical reoperation with appropriate consolidation of the surgical wound.
sternum dehiscence