2]. The authors said that our paper provided useful information to identify the risk factors that contribute to postoperative pelvic infection (pelvic cellulitis), but did not understand why prolonged hospital stay was defined a risk factor to increase pelvic cellulitis: prolonged hospital stay is a result rather than a cause (risk factor). In fact, only two among the 11 patients (case group) had postoperative pelvic cellulitis that occurred during hospitalization in our study. All the 195

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... nts who underwent laparoscopicassisted vaginal hysterectomy were cared for under a clinical pathway. The mean length of hospital stay was significantly increased in the case group (Tables 2 and 3 ). We do think that prolonged hospital stay is a cause (risk factor) rather than a result. A register study from the Swedish national register for gynecological surgery about vaginal cleaning and postoperative infectious morbidity in vaginal or laparoscopicallyassisted vaginal hysterectomy that enrolled 6496 women also concluded that risk factors for infectious morbidity were young age, obesity, peri-operative injury of the urinary bladder, operative time, and duration of hospital stay [3] . References [1] Tsui KH, Seow KM. Factors influencing the occurrence of pelvic cellulitis in women undergoing laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy. Taiwan J Obstet Gynecol 2012;51:491. [2] Chang WC, Hsieh CH, Lin CC, Lin WC, Hung YC, Wu WC. An analysis of risk factors for postoperative pelvic cellulitis after laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy. Taiwan J Obstet Gynecol 2011;50:463e7. [3] Kjølhede P, Halili S, Löfgren M. Vaginal cleansing and postoperative infectious morbidity in vaginal hysterectomy: a register study from the Swedish national register for gynecological surgery. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 2011;90:63e71.