The prophylactic use of antibiotics has become a routine procedure in many areas of medicine. In neurosurgery, however, there is considerable debate over their use in the prevention of postoperative infection. We pose several ethical questions about antibiotic prophylaxis in a neurosurgical setting. These questions are discussed under the following categories: responsible usage of antibiotics; ...

BACKGROUND Antibiotic prophylaxis is commonly used in head and neck surgery. Prophylactic use of antibiotics in clean surgical cases is not clearly indicated, but evidence exists for use in cases of clean-contaminated surgery, such as major head and neck oncologic procedures. Despite evidence specifically outlining the indications for antibiotic prophylaxis, there continues to be widespread var...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the impact and cost-benefit value of pharmacist interventions for prophylactic antibiotic use in surgical patients undergoing clean or clean-contaminated operations. METHODS A pre-to-post intervention study was performed in the Department of Urological Surgery of a tertiary hospital. Patients admitted from January through June 2011, undergoing clean or clean-contaminate...

We retrospectively examined prophylactic antibiotic use and documentation of wound classification in patients having gynecologic surgery at a tertiary hospital. Of the 326 cases reviewed, 175 (54%) received prophylactic antibiotics when not indicated according to guidelines of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Antibiotic administration varied significantly (P < 0.02) amon...

AIM In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the frequency of significant bacteriuria and antibiotic resistance characteristics in children with myelodysplasia in whom clean intermittent catheterization was administered. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study group was composed of 71 patients with myelodysplasia who were found to have significant bacteriuria (age: 8.20±4.57 years; 39 girls) and the co...

The aim of this study was to prospectively examine the effect of prophylactic antibiotic use on the development of respiratory infections and on the worsening of symptoms after diagnostic fiberoptic bronchoscopy procedures. This study was an open-label, multicenter, controlled, clinical trial. Patients were alternately assigned to a group given prophylactic antibiotics after bronchoscopy (proph...

BACKGROUND There has been a trend toward limiting perioperative prophylactic antibiotics, based on research not conducted in plastic surgery patients. The authors' university hospital instituted antibiotic prescribing guidelines based on the Surgical Care Improvement Project. An increased rate of surgical-site infections was noted in breast reconstruction patients. The authors sought to determi...

OBJECTIVES To assess compliance with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) guidelines of prophylactic antibiotic use in private hospitals in Shiraz, Iran. METHODS This cross-sectional study was performed using prospective data gathered from April to September 2010 in the surgical wards of all private hospitals in Shiraz. Administrative data, patient characteristics, and ant...

Despite systemic prophylaxis, infection rates after orthopedic surgery can reach more than 1%. A new HAP/TCP bone substitute loaded with 125 mg of gentamicin was designed for prophylactic use. Its aim was to enhance the efficacy of systemic prophylactic treatments by increasing the local antibiotic concentration. For prophylactic applications, release had to take place within 48 hours not to se...

BACKGROUND The timing of prophylactic antibiotic administration is a patient safety outcome that is recurrently tracked and reported. The interpretation of these data has important implications for patient safety practices. However, diverse data collection methods and approaches to analysis impede knowledge building in this field. This paper makes explicit several challenges to quantifying the ...