Intraoperative bacteremia during foot surgery.

Numerous studies have shown that bacteremias occur in patients during and immediately after some types of surgeries, placing the patient at risk of serious infection. This study was designed to ascertain whether a bacteremia will exist following routine podiatric surgery. Blood cultures were taken perioperatively from 42 subjects, and were incubated both aerobically and anaerobically, and swabs of the incision were made during the surgery. No bacteremias occurred during this study. This suggests that podiatric surgery, when properly performed, does not present a risk of bacteremia to the patient.