Fracture‐related wound infections following surgical treatment of fractures in HIV‐positive and HIV‐negative patients: A meta‐analysis

Abstract

The meta-analysis aims to evaluate and compare fracture-associated wound infections (FAWIs) following surgical treatment of fractures in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive and HIV-negative patients. Examinations comparing HIV-negative to HIV-negative for fracture was among the meta-analysis from various languages that met the inclusion criteria. Using dichotomous random or fixed models, the results of these investigations were examined, and the Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals was computed (CIs). 14 examinations from 1991 to 2023 were recruited for the current analysis including 3528 personals with fractures. HIV-positive had significantly higher FAWI before antiretroviral (OR, 3.59; 95% CI, 2.01–6.41, p < 0.001) compared to HIV-negative personals with fractures. However, no significant difference was found between HIV-positive and HIV-negative in FAWI after antiretroviral (OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.30–1.12, p = 0.10) in personals with fractures. The examined data revealed that HIV-positive had significantly higher FAWI before antiretroviral, however, no significant difference was found in FAWI after antiretroviral compared to HIV-negative personals with fractures. Nevertheless, caution should be exercised while interacting with its values since some of the chosen examinations were found with a low sample size and a low number of examinations were found for the comparisons studied for the meta-analysis.