Short‐term prophylaxis with cefuroxime in colorectal surgery for cancer

Abstract

A controlled study of short-term prophylaxis with cefuroxime was performed on a group of 52 patients with colorectal neoplasms who underwent elective surgery. The patients were divided into two groups, A and B. Group A received the antibiotic immediately before surgery, intraincisionally and immediately after the end of operation; group B was treated only postoperatively. Each patient received a total of 5,250 mg of cefuroxime. Wound sepsis was demonstrated in 11.5% of cases of group A and 23.0% of group B (P less than 0.01); another type of sepsis was observed in 34% of group A and 11.5% of group B (P less than 0.001). There was no difference in the operative mortality in the two groups.

Practice Parameters for Colon Cancer

“…27,28 In elective colon resection for cancer, the intravenous antibiotics need not be continued longer than 24 hours postoperatively. 29 Although there are several studies proposing the use of a single preoperative dose of antibiotics, [30][31][32][33][34] most of these suffer from a lack of statistical power because of small study size. There is one large, prospective, randomized trial that has shown that a single preoperative dose of cefotaxime and metronidazole is as effective as three doses.…”