Infection and a History of Surgery: A Case Control Seroprevalence Study.

We determined the association between having a history of surgery and the seroreactivity to An age- and gender-matched case-control study of 391 subjects with a history of surgery and 391 subjects without this history was performed. Sera of subjects were analyzed for detection of anti- immunoglobulin G (IgG) and M (IgM) antibodies using enzyme-linked immunoassays. Anti- IgG antibodies were found in 25 (6.4%) of the 391 cases and in 21 (5.4%) of the 391 controls (odds ratio [OR] = 1.29; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.66-2.18; = 0.54). The frequency of cases with high IgG antibody levels (10/25: 40.0%) was equal to that found in controls (8/21: 38.1%) (OR = 1.08; 95% CI: 0.32-3.56; = 0.89). Of the 25 anti- IgG antibody seropositive cases, 5 (16.0%) were also positive for anti IgM antibodies. Meanwhile, of the 21 anti IgG antibody seropositive controls, 4 (19.0%) were also positive for anti-T IgM antibodies (OR = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.17-3.72; = 0.80). Logistic regression showed that only the variable "hysterectomy" was associated with seropositivity (OR = 4.6; 95% CI: 1.6-13.4; = 0.005). Results suggest that having a history of surgery is not an important risk factor for infection with However, the link between infection and hysterectomy should be further investigated.