Evaluation of postoperative antibiotics after non-perforated appendectomy

Objective: to evaluate the role of postoperative antibiotics in reducing surgical site infections after appendectomy for non-perforated appendicitis. methods: the randomised controlled trial was conducted at khyber teaching hospital,peshawar,pakistan,from november 11,2012,to may 30,2014,and comprised patients of emergency appendectomy for non-perforated appendicitis who were divided into groups a and b. group a received a single dose of cefuroxime sodium and metronidazole half-an-hour before induction,while group b received one more dose of the same antibiotics postoperatively. both groups were followed for 6 weeks. spss 20 was used for statistical analysis. results: of the 390 patients in the study,192(49.2%) were in group a and 198(50.7%) in group b. number of surgical site infections was 15(7.8%) in group a and 18(9.1%) in group b (p=0.65). mean hospital stay of 3.32±0.4 days and 3.59±0.46 days was observed for group a and b,respectively,(p<0.001). conclusion: a single pre-operative dose of cefuroxime and metronidazole had the same efficacy in preventing surgical site infections in cases of non-perforated appendicitis as when the same regimen was repeated postoperatively. © 2015,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.