Antibiotic prophylaxis in high-risk gastric surgery. A prospective, randomized clinical comparison of cefuroxime and...

The efficacy of two antibiotics as prophylaxis in high-risk gastric surgery was evaluated in a prospective, randomized trial: 400 mg doxycycline in a single dose (98 patients) was compared with 1.5 g cefuroxime given twice with an 8-hour interval (101 patients). The two groups were comparable in regard to all relevant factors of importance for susceptibility to infection. The incidence of postoperative abdominal infection was 8.2% in the doxycycline group and 7.9% in the cefuroxime group. The most common extraabdominal infectious complications were in the lungs (20% of the patients in both groups). No subgroup of patients was identifiable in which one antibiotic was superior to the other. The efficacy of the two investigated prophylaxis regimens was apparently identical.