Value of C-reactive protein in the assessment of organ-space surgical site infections after elective open and laparoscopic colorectal surgery.

Background: Although C-reactive protein (CRP) has proved useful in the assessment of post-operative infections, its value at those time points useful to assess organ-space surgical site infection (OSI) after open and laparoscopic colorectal surgery has not been clarified.

Methods: We compared values of CRP on post-operative days two and five and percentage of change between those days (Δ%D2-5) in patients with and without OSI, after open (OPEN) and laparoscopic (LAP) colo-rectal surgery. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis was performed and indices of test performance of sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values, and likelihood ratios (LR+ and LR-) were assessed.