Effectiveness of Short-Course Antibacterial Therapy on Acute Cholecystitis after Successful Percutaneous Transhepatic...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcome of short- and long-course antibacterial therapy after successful percutaneous transhepatic gallbladder drainage in patients with mild to moderate acute cholecystitis. We compared the effect of short-course antibacterial therapy retrospectively (SCT; ≤3 days) and long-course antibacterial therapy (LCT; ≥4 days) after successful drainage of acute cholecystitis. The study outcomes involved three-month recurrence and 30-day mortality rates, as well as hospital stay length. We included 132 patients with acute cholecystitis who underwent successful percutaneous transhepatic gallbladder drainage (PTGBD) and excluded 174 patients. We then grouped these patients (78 males and 54 females), according to the duration of antibacterial therapy. Short- and long-course antibacterial therapy groups comprised 54 (40.9%) and 78 (59.1%) patients, respectively. We did not observe significant differences in the three-month recurrence (p = 0.761) and 30-day mortality (p = 0.151) rates between these groups and observed only two deaths in the LCT group. The median hospital stay for the SCT group was six days (interquartile range [IQR], 5-7 days), compared with nine days (IQR, 8-10 days) for the LCT group (p < 0.001). A duration of three days or less of antibacterial therapy may be adequate for patients with mild to moderate acute cholecystitis after successful PTGBD.