Antibiotic prophylaxis in the prevention of urinary tract infection in patients with sterile urine before extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy

Background: one of the lithotripsy complications is urinary tract infection (uti) and sepsis after extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (eswl). the aim was to study the prophylactic effect of antibiotics on uti after eswl. methods: this randomized double-blind clinical trial was carried out on 600 patients admitted to babol clinic hospital in 2014-2015. patients were randomly divided into treatment group (receiving 200 mg ofloxacin and control group (receiving placebo. the effect of prophylactic antibiotics on the incidence of bacteriuria after eswl and the impact of variables such as gender, age, urolithiasis size and location and underlying diseases in the incidence of uti after eswl were evaluated. results: totally, 67 of the population had positive urine cultures. twenty-nine (10.13%) of them were in the treatment group (n=286) and 38 (13.01%) of them were in the control group (n=292). all 67 patients had asymptomatic bacteriuria. escherichia coli and proteus were the grown microorganisms in most samples. the mean age of sample population was 44.8±23, and 67.16% of patients with positive urine culture were older than 45 years. conclusions: the results indicated that prophylactic antibiotics prior to eswl in patients with urinary calculi and negative urine culture had no significant decrease in urinary tract infection after lithotripsy. it is better that the use of prophylactic antibiotics is limited to patients with risk factors.