After spine surgery, patients can go home happy with good healing and small scars, but if there is a problem with the incision, it can be very “disturbing”. Infection and poor healing of the incision after surgery can prolong the patient’s hospital stay and increase the cost of treatment, which can be a physical and psychological blow to the patient and his or her family. Sometimes, after the patient goes home from the hospital, the incision becomes the following: more local discharge, part of the incision does not heal well; or the whole incision is red and swollen and does not heal well. In either case, the incision needs to be changed, cleared and, if necessary, antibiotics applied systemically in the hospital. Let’s learn more about the surgical incision. 1, the characteristics and causes of surgical incision infection Surgical incision infection is a part of surgicalsiteinfection (SSI), compared with deep infection, its symptoms are mild and simple to deal with. Its incidence rate has been reported inconsistently, with rates of SSI ranging from 1.9% to 4.4% after all spinal surgeries reported in recent years. Patient-related risk factors include advanced age, obesity, diabetes, reoperation of the spine, malnutrition, smoking, and long-term hormone application. Factors related to surgery include implantation of internal fixation materials, high surgical bleeding or long operative time. Lumbar spine surgery tends to have a higher rate of incisional infection than cervical spine surgery. In addition, strict aseptic dressing changes and careful personal care of the postoperative incision are also key to preventing incisional infections. As shown in Figure 2, there are more hairs and dirt around the incision, which greatly increases the chance of incision infection. (2) How to do aseptic dressing change (1) Preparation: The surrounding environment should be clean, clean, wear a mask and cap, and prepare a dressing change bowl or disposable dressing change kit, which usually includes sterile forceps, sterile cotton balls, sterile gauze, etc. (2) Observe the incision: the postoperative incision is mostly a sterile wound, usually changed every other day, if it is contaminated by sweat, urine or other reasons, it should be changed immediately. Often check the wound about 3 days after surgery, remove the dressing, pay attention to observe whether there is redness, oozing, blood accumulation, suture reaction, needle pustules and symmetry of the skin edge. After 5 days postoperatively, the chance of incision infection increases, so pay attention to timely disinfection and cleaning or hospital consultation. (3) Disinfection and dressing change: disinfect the incision and surrounding skin, the disinfection range is slightly larger than the gauze coverage range, the order should be disinfected symmetrically by the central incision, usually in a single direction, and the disinfected cotton balls should never be returned to the central disinfected area. If there is subcutaneous fluid accumulation, forceps and cotton balls should be used to gently and repeatedly squeeze until there is no exudation. Used forceps and cotton balls should not touch sterile items. (4) Dressing fixation: generally 4-6 layers of dressing are needed to cover the incision, and adhesive tape can be fixed reliably.