Morbidity and mortality associated with surgical site infections: results from the 1997-1999 INCISO surveillance.

Since 1997, a surgical-site infections (SSI) surveillance network (INCISO) has been implemented in volunteer general surgical units in Northern France. For three months each year, all patients who undergo a surgical procedure are consecutively reviewed for their peri-operative condition and traced for outcome with a 30-day follow-up. Of the 38973 surgical patients included over a three-year period, 1344 (3.