Chapter 28 B - Prophylactic Antibiotics

receive prophylactic antibiotics, primarily for surgical procedures. Although early studies in the 1950s and 1960s concluded that prophylaxis was not helpful, many of these studies were poorly done, and the basic principles of appropriate prophylactic antibiotic use were not understood. In reality, patients often were given therapeutic antibiotics; that is, the infection had already occurred. Since these early studies, data have shown clearly that prophylactic antibiotics are useful in certain circumstances.