Role of prophylactic antibiotics in clean surgery

Background: In general surgery postoperative wound infection is one of the expensive and underrated causes of patient morbidity and the advantages of using prophylactic antibiotics have not been proven. In this study use of prophylactic antibiotics was compared in terms of decreasing postoperative wound infection in clean cases of general surgery. Methods: This study was conducted at Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) Muzaffarabad, from July 2016 to January 2017. The study was approved by Ethical Committee of AIMS. The study involved one hundred patients. Sample size was calculated with WHO sample size estimator to be 93, and was rounded to 100 patients. For patient selection, convenience sampling method was used. All these patients went through clean general surgery operations. These patients were randomly placed in two groups, A and B with fifty patients in each group. All patients gave written informed consent. Injection cephradine (1st generation cephalosporin) 1 g IV 30 minutes prior to operation was administered and continued for 24 hours postoperatively in Group A. On the other hand patients of group B received no antibiotics. Result: In Group A, one patient (2%) and in Group-B, three patients (6%) were found to have wound infection after surgery. According to Chi-square test this low frequency (1/50 vs 3/50) as compared between Group A and B respectively about postoperative wound infection was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Usage of prophylactic antibiotics in clean general surgery is not significantly associated with decreasing the incidence of wound infection after surgery.