[Perioperative prophylaxis in elective colorectal surgery]

The effects of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis in elective colon surgery was evaluated in a prospective study on 100 patients. Bowel cleansing was done by orthograde lavage. The patients were divided into 5 groups receiving equally cefotaxime 3 x 2 g, lamoxactam 3 x 2 g, cefmenoxime 3 x 1 g, mezlocillin 3 x 5 g an piperacillin 3 x 4 g. Mucosa biopsies of the resected colon were taken for aerobic and anaerobic cultures. Further mucosal serum probes were frozen immediately for determination of tissue and serum levels of the antibiotics. Our results show that bacterial growth of the colon mucosa was significantly reduced. Anaerobes were identified in only 8%. The tissue concentrations exceeded the MIC-levels of the identified bowel organisms many times over. The clinical infection rate was 4%. All administered antibiotics can be recommended without reservation.