Survey of Prophylactic use of Antibiotics among Indian Neurosurgeons

Despite recommendations and guidelines, surgical antibiotic prophylaxis protocol for neurosurgical cases is not uniformly followed.

To report trends in the use of prophylactic antibiotics by Indian neurosurgeons for non-trauma neurosurgical cases.

An email survey consisting of 17 questions was sent in 2018 to 2,175 surgical members with a registered email in the Neurological Society of India (NSI) registry. Three reminders were sent at 3-month intervals. The results were analyzed for the number, type, and duration of antibiotic use for different surgical procedures. The differences in the antibiotic policy in different practice settings were also studied.

The response rate was less than 5% (103 responses). Almost all (98.1%) surgeons used prophylactic antibiotics. A single antibiotic was most used for cranial surgeries (85%) and least for spine surgeries with instrumentation (64%) (P = 0.001). One dose or 1 day of antibiotics was used by the least number of responders (29%) for spinal instrumentation surgeries and the most responders (66.7%) for spinal surgery without instrumentation (P < 0.0001). Surgeons working in corporate teaching hospitals or non-teaching hospitals were more likely to use antibiotics for longer duration than surgeons working in government/trust teaching hospitals.

Substantial numbers of surgeons use prophylactic antibiotics for more than 1 day with a higher proportion of surgeons working in corporate teaching and non-teaching hospitals pursuing such a policy.