Objective: To determine whether use of absorbable antibiotic-imbued beads in chronic soft tissue wounds presents a viable therapeutic modality. Approach: Retrospective analysis of all cases utilizing calcium sulfate antibiotic beads was conducted. Cases comprised complex wound and breast reconstruction performed by the senior author (C.P.D.) over 4 years at the University of New Mexico Hospital. All-cause need for reoperation and reoperation for infection in the 90 days following bead-assisted surgery were compared to traditional surgical intervention in the 90-day period preceding bead-assisted surgery. Paired-samples t-test and corrected Cohen's d were calculated for outcome significance and effect size. Results: A total of 60 patients underwent 84 bead-assisted surgeries. There was a significant decrease in rate of reoperation following bead surgery (M = 0.32) compared with prebead surgery (M = 2.2), p < 0.001. Rate of reoperation for infection significantly decreased from 1.7 before bead surgery to 0.05 following bead surgery, p < 0.001. Results remained significant when stratified by complex wound or breast reconstruction, p < 0.01. Cohen's d ranged from 1.25 to 2.13, with probability of superiority between 80% and 93%. Innovation: Use of antibiotic-laden materials is well established in the orthopedic literature, but poorly characterized in soft tissue applications. Biofilms are increasingly implicated as a unifying pathologic foe underlying chronic wound infection and nonhealing. Antibiotic beads have demonstrated activity against biofilm in vitro. This study demonstrates diminished reoperative burden for these wounds following antibiotic bead surgery, possibly as a result of in vivo biofilm antagonism. Conclusion: Antibiotic bead-assisted surgery was associated with significantly decreased infectious and all-cause reoperations for chronic and infected wounds.

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