Surg Today
2000;30(4):309-18
Second Department of Surgery, Juntendo University School of Medicine,
Tokyo, Japan.
Whole blood chemiluminescence (CL), which allows for the evaluation of both
the oxygen radical release by phagocytes and the serum opsonin activity
using very small amounts of blood, is considered to be a useful means of
assessing the host defense against infection. We measured the whole blood
chemiluminescence in 59 patients before and after open surgery (surgery by
a laparotomy) for gastrointestinal disease. Early postoperative infection
was detected in 12 (20.3%) of the 59 patients. These 12 patients all had
significantly higher white blood cell counts compared with the noninfected
patients on the third and subsequent days after surgery (P 0.01). The
peak CL in the early postoperative infected group was also significantly
higher than that in the noninfected group on the day of surgery (P
0.0001), 1 day after surgery (P 0.0001), and 3 days after surgery (P
0.01). Whole blood CL may therefore be a useful modality for the early
detection of postoperative infection in the future.