Antibiotic prophylaxis is unnecessary in clean surgery

A significant number of paediatric surgical patients undergone clean surgical procedures. Most of the paediatric surgeon use perioperative prophylactic antibiotic in this clean procedure because of undue fear of infection in their mind. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether the use of perioperative prophylactic antibiotics have an effect to prevent post operative wound infection in clean operation in paediatric surgical patients. This study was conducted in the paediatric surgery department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and some private clinics of Dhaka city from January 2009 to December 2009. Two hundred patients who were undergone clean elective surgical procedure on day case basis were included in this study. They were divided into two equal groups (Group A and Group B). The patients of Group A were given intransverse Cephradine 30 minutes before incision and then oral Cephradine was advised postoperatively for 7 days. The patients of Group B were not given any perioperative antibiotic. All the patients of both groups were advised to come on 3rd, 6th and 10th postoperative day for examination of wound. In Group A (With chemo prophylaxis), five patients (5%) developed postoperative wound infection and in Group B (without chemo prophylaxis), three patients (3%) developed postoperative wound infection. Thus the rate of postoperative wound infection is slightly more in patients with chemo prophylaxis but it was not statistically significant by chi-square test. Based on the result of this study, it may be concluded that the antibiotic prophylaxis is not necessary in clean surgery in paediatric age group.