Antibiotics as Prophylactic Drugs

First of all, let’s know the meaning of prophylaxis medically. Prophylaxis is a preventive measure that comes from Greek. It is used in medicine to describe the way or the medication used to fend off a disease or any unwanted consequence as infection.

With increasing number of surgeries or operations, the post-operative infection has become one of the problems that have been found more often. This complication may lead to hospitalization stay.

Usually, Infection occurs within 30 days after the operation on surgical site or within one year if the prosthetic part (implant) is in place. But, fortunately, this infection can be prevented in many ways including some aspects of health-care provider, operating-room environment and adequate preoperative preparation of patients.

Antibiotic prophylaxis is one of the important methods for preventing surgical site infection. Its administration significantly reduces the incidence of post-operative infection in surgeries. These antibiotics are prescribed shortly before the surgery to reduce the rate of contamination with bacteria.

Honestly, these drugs are double-edged weapons that have great benefits and have risks. The decision to administer antibiotic prophylaxis should be made, take those aspects into consideration. Accordingly, antibiotics are given according to three factors, such as wound class, ASA physical status scale, and duration of operation according to the NNIS Survey (National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance).

Yet, avoiding unnecessary use of antibiotics helps in diminishing the occurrence of adverse effects and antibiotic resistance development. It is administrated when the patient has a major surgery or he is medically compromised or he has a dirty deep wound but never prescribe a preoperative antibiotic for a patient suffers from a clean wound, since it becomes unnecessary.

Antibiotics should be given within 30 to 60 minutes of a surgical incision. If a patient is already receiving an antibiotic for another infection before surgery, and it is appropriate for surgical prophylaxis, an extra dose of the antibiotic can be administered within 60 minutes of the incision.