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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Oct 18, 2025; 16(10): 110741
Published online Oct 18, 2025. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i10.110741
Published online Oct 18, 2025. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i10.110741
Effectiveness of surgical skin preparation solutions in orthopaedic surgery: A systematic review of the current comparative literature
Troy B Puga, McKenna W Box, John T Riehl, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical City Denton, Denton, TX 76210, United States
Tanner Haechten, College of Medicine, Kansas City University, Kansas, MO 64106, United States
Ibraheem Qureshi, College of Medicine, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY 11545, United States
Author contributions: Puga TB, Box MW, Haechten T, Qureshi I, and Riehl JT were involved in data collection and data analysis and involved in manuscript writing and editing; Puga TB, Box MW, and Riehl JT conceived the study idea; Puga TB and Riehl JT provided administrative support and guidance.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Riehl JT receives royalties and consulting fees from Arthrex Inc. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Troy B Puga, MD, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical City Denton, 3535 S I-35, Denton, TX 76210, United States. troypugaorthopaedics@gmail.com
Received: June 16, 2025
Revised: June 29, 2025
Accepted: September 10, 2025
Published online: October 18, 2025
Processing time: 125 Days and 5.7 Hours
Revised: June 29, 2025
Accepted: September 10, 2025
Published online: October 18, 2025
Processing time: 125 Days and 5.7 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Perioperative surgical skin preparation techniques were found to be equivalent between iodine and chlorhexidine-based solutions in multiple orthopaedic surgery settings. Perioperative surgical skin preparation still remains critical for infection prevention in orthopaedic surgery. Surgeons may use their preference and surgical expertise for choosing the appropriate surgical skin preparation solution, as the current literature does not support a superior skin preparation solution.