The aim of the paper is to observe the effectiveness of prophylactic administration of antibacterials against empyema and pneumonia after tube thoracostomy for traumatic collections.
Material and methods: Observational retrospective study over a ten years period (2002-2011), at the Oradea County Emergency Hospital on 939 patients with chest tube drainage for traumatic haemo/pneumothoraces. The morbidity by intrathoracic infections was 5,5% in the curative antibiotic group.
Results: The median number of risk factors for surgical infections and case severity were not statistically different (p=0.9653 and p=0,6601) between cases with antibioprophylaxis and curative treatment, but the incidence of intrathoracic infection in the prophylaxis group (n=86) was half (2,3%). Antibioprophylaxis was effective in over 95% of the cases and it associated in-hospital length of stay, length of stay in the ICU and costs of care significantly (p<0.0001, p<0.0001, p=0.0046) lesser than of those patients treated with curative regimen. The overall mortality was 8.6% within the curative regimen group with an attributable mortality to infections of 17.39%; but it was only 2.3% and respectively 0 within the prophylaxis group.
Conclusions: Antibiotic prophylaxis for intrathoracic infections after tube thoracostomy for traumatic collections was justified by case severity and risk factors and was effective and cost-efficient, but it should be administered selectively.