Clinical Study of Prophylactic Antibiotics to Determine the Optimum Duration of Administration

Abstract

To confirm the benefits of short term perioperative chemoprophylaxis a prospective randomized comparative study was performed. The patients admitted for elective gastroduodenal or biliary tract surgery had been enrolled. The patients were given two different antibiotic regimens; cefazolin (I) or combination of penicillin and gentamicin (II), for three different periods starting preoperatively; 1 day (group A), 3 days (group B) and 5 to 7 days (group C). The each group of patients was similar in terms of age, sex, weight, duration of operation, preoperative hospital days and distribution of disease and operation. The rate of infection was 5.1% (5/99) in group A, 7.7% (8/104) in group Band 6.9% (7/101) in group C. No significant difference was found between cefazolin alone (5.8%) and penicillin plus gentamicin (7.3%) in the rate of infection. This result suggests that there is no benefit from continuing antibiotic administration beyond the day of operation in preventing infectious complication after clean contaminated operation.