Publication:

A comparative prospective study of preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis in the prevention of surgical site infections

Background Most common cause of post-operative morbidity is surgical site infection (SSI) in planned cases accounting nearly 65% to 80% of all cases in our population. Prior to the use of prophylactic antibiotic, the incidence of surgical site infection was more, which has been drastically reduced the incidence of surgical site infection. This study was conducted to know the need for antibiotic prophylaxis in clean, clean-contaminated surgical wounds and whether prophylactic antibiotic is itself sufficient to minimize surgical site infection.

Methods 300 patients admitted during January 2011 to December 2012 in District hospital Belgaum, attached to Belgaum Institute of Medical Sciences were selected for our study and were subjected for clean or clean contaminated surgeries done under meticulous surgical technique.

Results Our study showed that there is no need for prophylactic antibiotics in cases of clean surgeries. We recommend antibiotic prophylaxis in clean contaminated cases. The incidence of surgical site infection depends on various factors like old age (21.91%), anaemia (23.97%), Diabetes mellitus (20.54%) and prolonged duration of surgery more than 2 hours (14.38%).

Conclusions From this study we can conclude that, in cases of clean surgeries there is no need for prophylactic antibiotics, as there is no statistical significance, whereas in clean contaminated cases antibiotic prophylaxis is recommended as it reduces SSI statistically significant.