Impact of enhanced hospital infection prevention measures during-COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of surgical site infections following spinal instrumentation surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis: A nationwide database study

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that SSIs following instrumented spinal surgeries for LCS in Japan increased during-pandemic, even with matched patient characteristics. Future research should focus on identifying specific elements of perioperative care that may have been compromised during the pandemic and developing targeted interventions to address these gaps in surgical infection prevention.