Appropriate Administration of Prophylactic Antibiotics in Clean Operations: A Preliminary Report

ABSTRACT

Surgical site infection is one of the most common hospital infections and surgical complications. Appropriate administration of prophylactic antibiotics is, therefore, important to reduce surgical site infection rate. The use of prophylactic antibiotics in Korea tends to be too long and clinical confirmation of safe reduction of oral antibiotics use is mandatory. This is a preliminary report on the results of reducing oral antibiotics from 5 to 2 days in clean plastic surgery patients. Patients who underwent clean operation under local anesthesia between June 2008 and December 2008 were included in this study. The patients were divided into two groups, and they received oral antibiotics for 2(group O2) or 5(group O5) days. Complication rates, related expenses, and patients' complaints regarding the medication were compared between the two groups, considering the intravenous antibiotics use. There was no significant systemic or infection-related complication. An overall complication rates were 2.8% in group O2, 4.8% in group O5. All the complications were regional and required no surgical intervention. There were no significant differences between total(p=0.72), intravenous antibiotics administered patients(p=0.08), and intravenous antibiotics non-administered patients(p=1.00). Oral antibiotics could safely be reduced to 2 days in clean plastic surgery excluding intravenous antibiotics.