To prevent surgical site infections, when does the patient get antibiotics? Before surgery, after, or both? For too many surgical patients, the answer turns out to be both, a leading expert told doctors and nurses at JPS on Tuesday.
There’s strong evidence that administering antibiotics before surgery reduces the likelihood of a surgical-site infection later, said Donald Fry, MD, of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and editor-in-chief of the medical journal Surgical Infections.
There’s no evidence to support continuing antibiotics afterward, however. A long course of antibiotics after surgery won’t prevent infection, Fry said, but it will increase antibiotic resistance, making any infection that does develop more difficult to treat.
The notion that post-op antibiotics will keep infection at bay continues to persist in medicine despite lack of evidence to support it, said Fry.
Fry was this month’s speaker at Trauma Talk, a popular continuing education lecture series by the Level I Trauma Center at JPS.
“We’ve got a laser focus on preventing surgical site infection at JPS,” said trauma surgeon Raj Gandhi, MD, PhD. “We want to get our patients better so they can return to their homes, their families and the activities that mean the most to them. Dr. Fry brings with him a wealth of information that solidifies best practices with data, confirming that we’re moving in the right direction.”