Adherence to international antimicrobial prophylaxis guidelines in cardiac surgery: a Jordanian study demonstrates...

Antimicrobial prophylaxis in cardiac surgery has been demonstrated to lower the incidence of surgical site infection (SSI). Inappropriate antimicrobial prophylaxis, such as inappropriate selection of the antimicrobial agent or inappropriate dosing regimen, can increase the prevalence of antibiotic resistant strains, prolong hospital stay, cause adverse reactions, and negatively affect an institution's pharmacy budget for antibiotics. In developing countries such as Jordan, where the role of clinical pharmacists is still in its primary stages, the first step in establishing an organized clinical pharmacy service is the evaluation of current practice to determine the need for improvement.

To assess the degree of adherence to international guidelines for antimicrobial prophylaxis practice in cardiac surgery performed at Queen Alia Heart Institute (QAHI) in Amman, Jordan, as part of an attempt to determine opportunities for clinical pharmacist intervention.

For a total of 236 patients who were admitted for cardiac surgery to QAHI - the only official referral hospital for cardiac patients in Jordan - between November 19, 2006, and January 22, 2007, the antimicrobial prophylaxis indication, choice, duration, dose, dosing interval, and timing appropriateness were assessed against 3 international guidelines using a pre-tested, structured clinical data collection form that was completed by 2 of the authors who work at QAHI. The study design was prospective. All patients who were scheduled for surgery were monitored daily during their inpatient stay until discharge and then were tracked in the outpatient clinic for 2 months following surgery. Data regarding antimicrobial prophylaxis indication, choice, duration, dose, dosing interval, and timing appropriateness were collected during the patient's inpatient stay; data collection was performed periodically thereafter as data became available until the end of the 2-month follow-up. The 3 guidelines agreed that (a) antimicrobial prophylaxis should be given to all patients undergoing cardiac surgeries; (b) the first- or second-generation cephalosporins (cefazolin or cefuroxime) are the antibiotics of choice, and vancomycin use is reserved for cases of allergy to beta-lactams or if presumed or known methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization is present; (c) the timing of the first dose should be within 60 minutes prior to the skin incision; and (d) the duration of antimicrobial prophylaxis should not be longer than 48 hours.

Adherence to all antimicrobial prophylaxis guidelines was not achieved for any study patients. For the 6 evaluated criteria, (1) indication: in 100% of patients the appropriate decision was made to use antimicrobial prophylaxis in concordance with guidelines; (2) choice: only 1.7% of patients received the antibiotic of choice; (3) duration: 39.4% of patents received antimicrobial prophylaxis for a total duration of 48 hours or less in concordance with guidelines, and for 58.9% of patients, duration was longer than recommended; (4) dose: 27.9% of patients received an appropriate dose; (5) dosing interval: only 13.0% of patients received an appropriate dosing interval, and none of the doses of antimicrobial prophylaxis used at induction of anesthesia was repeated in operations that lasted longer than the half-life of the antibiotic used; and (6) timing: 99.1% of patients received antimicrobial prophylaxis dose within 60 minutes prior to skin incision as recommended by guidelines, but 97.0% of patients received an unnecessary midnight dose of intravenous antibiotic the night before surgery.

Study findings indicate that adherence to international guidelines for antimicrobial prophylaxis is far from optimal in QAHI, leading to the inappropriate administration of many antibiotics. Developing local hospital guidelines, as well as giving the clinical pharmacist a central role in the administration, monitoring, and intervention of antimicrobial prophylaxis may improve the current practice.