Front. Surg.

Sec. Vascular Surgery

Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2024.1395681

Provisionally accepted

Joseph Cutteridge 1,2* Pierre Garrido 3 Tim Staniland 4 Arthur Lim 2 Joshua Totty 5 Ross Lathan 2,5 George Smith 2,5 Ian Chetter 2,6 1 Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of York, Heslington, United Kingdom 2 Academic Vascular Surgical Unit, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Hull, United Kingdom 3 East Surrey Hospital, Redhill, Surrey, United Kingdom 4 Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Hull, United Kingdom 5 Clinical Sciences Centre, Hull York Medical School, Hull, England, United Kingdom 6 Hull York Medical School, Hull, England, United Kingdom

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Background: Surgical site infections (SSIs) pose a significant challenge to healthcare systems by elevating patient morbidity and mortality and driving up financial costs. Preoperative skin preparation is crucial for preventing SSIs; however, certain traditional methods of hair removal have been found to increase the risk of SSI development. Mechanical epilation and waxing constitute two relatively explored methods of hair removal, which may hold potential to accelerate wound healing due to the activation of stem cells within hair follicles. This review assesses the efficacy of preoperative hair removal via waxing and mechanical epilation in reducing SSI incidence. Methods: This systematic review was prospectively registered with PROSPERO (ref: CRD42023423798) and a protocol previously published in a peer-reviewed journal. All findings are reported according to PRISMA guidelines. A comprehensive search of Medline, Embase, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.gov and CINAHL. Inclusion criteria encompassed adult patients undergoing any surgical procedure, comparing waxing or epilation against other hair removal methods or no hair removal, with SSI incidence as the primary outcome. There was no restriction on study size or quality to ensure a comprehensive literature evaluation. Results: The review found no studies meeting the selection criteria out of 576 records screened. Discussion / Conclusion: This review has identified no literature regarding the use of waxing and mechanical epilation as methods of preoperative hair removal. The lack of experimental evidence combined with the potential physiological advantages of these techniques indicate that this could be a valuable area of future research. These techniques may represent novel approaches to SSI prevention, particularly beneficial in high-risk surgical disciplines like vascular surgery.

Keywords: Surgical site infection, Epilation, Waxing, Hair Removal, systematic review. (Min.5-Max. 8)

Received: 04 Mar 2024; Accepted: 19 Nov 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Cutteridge, Garrido, Staniland, Lim, Totty, Lathan, Smith and Chetter. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Joseph Cutteridge, Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of York, Heslington, United Kingdom

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