Curie Brief
Turn on cookies to sign in
Signing in saves your progress to your Curie account. We can only do that with cookies on — turn them on to continue.
News
Surgery finally gets a common language for wound complications. Researchers have developed and validated DISH — a cross-specialty classification system for dehiscence, infection, seroma, and hematoma — spanning 30+ countries and 14 surgical specialties. The system uses five intervention grades and four presentation grades, giving clinicians a standardized way to report and compare surgical site outcomes worldwide.
Surgery finally gets a common language for wound complications
Surgical site complications have long been reported inconsistently across specialties and institutions — but a new classification system aims to change that. Researchers developed and validated DISH (Dehiscence, Inflammation/Infection, Seroma, Hematoma), a cross-specialty, globally applicable framework for standardizing how surgical wound outcomes are described and managed. The initiative, convened by the Johnson & Johnson Surgical Outcomes Program, drew input from clinicians across more than 30 countries and 14 specialties.
The DISH system features five objectifiable grades of clinical intervention (0–4, ranging from "does not exist" to "treated under general/regional anesthesia") and four grades of clinical presentation (a–d). Generative AI was used to create 19 case vignettes for reliability and language validation, and the system demonstrated strong performance across all domains.
By the Numbers
Why it matters: Inconsistent wound outcome reporting makes it hard to compare results across institutions or improve care. DISH gives surgeons worldwide a shared vocabulary — potentially reducing costs and improving patient outcomes by enabling evidence-based practice comparisons at a global scale.
