Safety of transrectal prostatic biopsy through double-glove technique without antibiotic prophylaxis

We studied 143 men who underwent transrectal prostatic biopsies using the double-glove technique. No patient received any antimicrobial therapy before the procedure. Clean catch urine cultures were obtained at admission and two, four, and twenty-four hours, and two weeks after biopsy. Aerobic and anaerobic blood cultures were performed at admission, and at thirty minutes and four hours after the procedure. In addition, clinical parameters were monitored closely in the hospital for twenty-four hours after the biopsy. A total of 132 patients were considered evaluable. Temperatures of 37.6 degrees C or higher occurred in 3.8 percent of the patients. In no case was rigors recorded. In 4 of the patients studied (3%) post-biopsy urine cultures were infected with Escherichia coli. All post-biopsy blood cultures, both aerobic and anaerobic, were negative. Our data indicate that with the use of the double-glove technique, prophylactic administration of antibiotics is not necessary to prevent the infectious complications following transrectal biopsy of the prostate.