Introduction: Injuries caused by road traffic accidents, they are a global public health problem. An estimated 84. 3 percent of injuries are extremity bone fractures. Open fractures cause late complications and permanent disability. Objectives: To determine if risk factors associated with pathology (fracture site, open facture classification, effect of comorbidities) or risk factors associated with medical care (type of antibiotic prophylaxis different to institutional guidelines, prolonged time to remission, prolonged time to surgical management) are associated with infection, in population older than 15 years, from October 2012 to October 2013 Methods: case-control not-matching study with 43 cases and 129 controls, not-matching (infected and not infected). Results: The mean age of the cases was 39. 42 +/- 16. 82 years (mediane =36 years); mean age of controls was 33. 27 +/- 11. 64 years (mediane=30 years). An 83. 7 percent of cases and 78 percent of controls are male. Motorcycle accidents predominated in 81. 4 percent of cases and 86 percent of controls. The bivariate analysis found significant statistical differences in age older than 50 years (p = 0. 042), open fracture classification type IIIB or IIIC (p = 0. 02), compliance with antibiotic prophylaxis (p = 0. 014) and remission time more than 24 hours (p = 0. 035). In the logistic regression analysis, only the open fracture classification type IIIB or IIIC are associated with infection OR 2. 6, 95% CI (1. 187 to 5. 781) fracture (p = 0. 017). The duration of hospitalization was greater in cases (32. 37 +/- 22. 92 days, median = 26 days) than controls (8. 81 +/- 7. 52 days, median = 6 days) (p < 0. 001). The average of number of debridement and irrigation was greater in the case group (4. 85 ± 4. 1, median = 4. 0) than in the control group (1. 94 ± 1. 26, median = 2) (p < 0. 001). Conclusions: An infected open fracture involves high costs of medical care with prolonged hospitalizations and increased frequency of surgical procedures as we evidenced in the present study. We must to improve reference system and reduce time to specialized management in patients with open fractures. We must ensure in each institution the compliance with antibiotic prophylaxis protocols to reduce infection of open fractures.
