ObjectiveTo compare medical expense of patients with and without  intracranial infection after craniocerebral operation, analyze the costbenefit of prevention and control programme for surgical site infection (SSI) after craniocerebral operation. MethodsAll patients who underwent craniocerebral operation in department of neurosurgery in a hospital between June 2014 and May 2015 were surveyed retrospectively, a 1∶1 matched casecontrol study was adopted to compare medical expenses in patients with and without intracranial infection after craniocerebral operation, economic loss due to SSI after craniocerebral operation was calculated, cost of prevention and control programme for SSI was analyzed, benefit was calculated.ResultsLength of hospital stay in case group was longer than that of control group (25 ［20, 32］ d vs 16 ［12, 19］ d, P<0.001 ). Total hospitalization expense of case group was more than that of control group (96 150.6 ［69 415.0, 153 079.6］ yuan vs 59 438.6 ［50 092.6, 77 336.4］ yuan, P<0.001). The top 5 expenses were fees for medicine, operation, therapy, examination, and laboratory testing, each expense of infected patients was higher than that of uninfected patients. If incidence of SSI decreased by 5% due to the implementation of SSI prevention and control programme in department of neurosurgery, the generated economic benefit was enough to pay the cost of programme; when infection rate decreased by 20%-30%, the ratio of benefit to cost could reach 4-6. ConclusionIntracranial infection after craniocerebral operation can bring a heavy economic burden to patients, implementation of prevention and control programme for SSI in department of neurosurgery can not only reduce the economic burden of patients, but also increase hospital income and improve medical quality.