Use and outcomes of extended antibiotic prophylaxis in urological cancer surgery

Although perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis prevents postoperative infectious complications, national guidelines recommend cessation of antibiotics within 24 hours after the procedure. Extended antibiotic prophylaxis beyond 24 hours may contribute to hospital acquired infections such as Clostridium difficile colitis. We evaluated practice patterns of antibiotic prophylaxis in genitourinary cancer surgery and assessed the impact of antibiotic prophylaxis on hospital acquired C. difficile infections.

We identified 59,184 patients treated with radical prostatectomy, 27,921 who underwent partial or radical nephrectomy, and 5,425 treated with radical cystectomy for prostate, kidney and bladder cancers, respectively, from the Premier Perspective Database (Premier Inc., Charlotte, North Carolina) from 2007 to 2012. We constructed hierarchical linear regression models to identify patient and hospital factors associated with extended antibiotic prophylaxis. We evaluated the association between extended antibiotic prophylaxis and C. difficile infections for patients who underwent partial or radical nephrectomy and radical cystectomy with multivariate logistic regression.

Surgery specific models demonstrated that hospital identity was associated with a substantial proportion of the variation in extended antibiotic prophylaxis (20% to 35% for radical prostatectomy, partial or radical nephrectomy, and radical cystectomy). Postoperative C. difficile colitis occurred in 0.02% of patients treated with radical prostatectomy, 0.23% of those treated with partial or radical nephrectomy and 1.7% of those treated with radical cystectomy. On multivariate analysis extended antibiotic prophylaxis was associated with higher odds of C. difficile infection after partial or radical nephrectomy (OR 3.79, 95% CI 2.46-5.84) and radical cystectomy (OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.12-2.39).

Antibiotics may be overused after genitourinary cancer surgery and this overuse is associated with hospital acquired C. difficile colitis. Efforts are needed to encourage greater compliance with evidence-based approaches to postoperative care.