© Annals of Palliative Medicine. All rights reserved. Ann Palliat Med 2022 | https://dx.doi.org/10.21037/apm-22-306 Introduction Surgical site infection (SSI), which defined as infections occurring up to 30 days after surgery, is one of the most common complications associated with cardiac surgery. It results in prolonged hospital stay, compromised quality of life, and increased morbidity and costs (1). Several risk factors have been reported and various interventions to prevent SSI have been used, including preoperative bathing, smoking cessation, glucose control, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) screening, bowel preparations, skin preparation, surgical hand scrub, surgical gowns and masks, and antibiotic prophylaxis. In addition, daily wound dressing is recommended postoperatively (2). Guidelines suggest that early showering does not increase Original Article Effects of early postoperative shower after cardiac surgery Jae Suk Yoo 1 , Heemoon Lee 2 ^, Sang Eun Kim 3 , Eun A Lee 4 , Kyung Hee Shin 5 1 Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; 2 Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Bucheon Sejong Hospital, Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea; 3 Medical Research Institute, Bucheon Sejong Hospital, Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea; 4 Department of Nursing Education and Administration, Bucheon Sejong Hospital, Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea; 5 Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Nurse Care, Bucheon Sejong Hospital, Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea Contributions: (I) Conception and design: JS Yoo, KH Shin; (II) Administrative support: JS Yoo, H Lee, EA Lee; (III) Provision of study materials or patients: JS Yoo, H Lee; (IV) Collection and assembly of data: SE Kim; (V) Data analysis and interpretation: JS Yoo, H Lee, SE Kim; (VI) Manuscript writing: All authors; (VII) Final approval of manuscript: All authors. Correspondence to: Heemoon Lee, MD, PhD. Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Bucheon Sejong Hospital, 28, Hohyeon-ro 489beon-gil, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 14754, Republic of Korea. Email: rhythmists@gmail.com. Background: Little is known regarding the effects of early showers after cardiac surgery. We evaluated the infuence of early showers on postoperative wound complications following cardiac surgery. Methods: This was a prospective observational study of 100 cardiac surgery patients (mean age, 63.0±13.5 years) who underwent early postoperative showers from September 2020 to March 2021 at our institution. Postoperative showers were initiated after the drain was removed. Postoperative wound complications were examined and patient satisfaction was evaluated using questionnaires. Results: Surgery was performed through sternotomy in 48 patients (48.0%) and through minimally invasive approaches (right or left mini-thoracotomy) in 52 patients (52.0%). The mean time from surgery to shower was 6.0±1.4 days. No wound dehiscence, superfcial wound infection, or deep wound infection was observed. Questionnaires showed that more than 50% of patients thought they were not allowed to shower until more than 2 weeks after the operation. Patient satisfaction score was 7.4±2.3 out of 10 for early showers after cardiac surgery. Conclusions: Our study suggests that postoperative early showers after cardiac surgery are not associated with an increased risk of wound complications. Patient satisfaction was also high. Early postoperative showering can be considered after cardiac surgery. Keywords: Postoperative shower; wound infection; surgical wound infection; surgical wound dehiscence Submitted Mar 08, 2022. Accepted for publication May 20, 2022. doi: 10.21037/apm-22-306 View this article at: https://dx.doi.org/10.21037/apm-22-306 ^ ORCID: 0000-0003-0606-4067.