A comparative study on antibiotics and no antibiotics in clean surgical cases

Abstract

Background: Surgical wound infection is one of the most commonly occurring complications and its incidence has been lowest in clean surgical cases. Prophylactic antibiotics are routinely used in all surgical cases. But this is not indicated in clean surgical cases. Due to undue fear of infections, many practicing surgeons use antibiotics in clean surgical cases. Misuse of antimicrobials leads to drug toxicity, super infections, high health care cost and colonization of wards by highly resistant microbes. Objective of the study is to compare the frequencies of wound site infections in patients undergoing clean elective general surgery operations with no antibiotics and single dose prophylactic antibiotics.Methods: A comparative study of 100 patients undergoing elective clean surgeries at Victoria Hospital from November 2012 to October 2014 was undertaken. Data was collected by history taking, clinical examination, hematological and microbiological investigations and follow up.Results: Two cases in each group had post-operative infections noticed on the day 2 wound examination. All the four cases had culture positive with isolates being S. aureus in three and E. coli in single case.Conclusions: Post-operative wound infections noted in two cases in both the groups do not have any clinical and statistical significance; hence single dose of prophylactic antibiotics is not required in all the clean surgical cases. A simple size of large number is required in this area of research to conclude with statistical significance.