[Results of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis in orthognathic surgery]

Intraoral approaches are commonly used for the surgical correction of dysgnathia. Because of the massive contamination of these wounds, antibiotic therapy is considered necessary. In a study on an unselected patient population the benefit of perioperative short-term prophylaxis is compared with that of postoperative long-term treatment. The results have shown perioperative short-term prophylaxis with penicillin to be extra-ordinarily effective vis à vis long-term treatment with oxytetracycline. Inflammatory complications did not occur, whereas in a control group they were observed in almost one fifth of the patients. In addition, this form of short-term prophylaxis is far more economical. The differences are statistically significant.