Objective: Recently, some studies suggested that antimicrobial prophylactics (AMP) are not needed to prevent surgical site infection (SSI) for clean operations despite worldwide acceptance of AMP. However, appropriate use of AMP in urological surgery has not been fully studied. Herein, we report an attempt of gradual decrease of AMP to non-use of AMP in minimum incision endoscopic urological surgery (MEUS) of adrenal and renal tumors.
Materials and methods: We investigated 95 consecutive patients who underwent 16 MEUS adrenalectomy and 79 MEUS radical and partial nephrectomy in our hospital. Patients were classified into the following three groups by means of prevention of SSI: the first step group received ampicillin sodium/sulbactam sodium 1.5 g i.v. 30 min before the operation; the second step group received a single 300 mg of levofloxacin orally 60 min before the operation; and the third step group received no AMP. Clinical backgrounds and incidences of SSI were compared among these three groups.
Results: The first, second and third step groups consisted of 31, 36 and 28 patients, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference among these groups in terms of clinical backgrounds including age, sex, body mass index, American Society of Anesthesiologists classification, National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance risk index, and type and length of operation. The first step group had one superficial SSI that healed without any non-specific treatment. None of the second and third step groups had superficial SSI. There was no case of deep surgical site or distant infection.
Conclusion: AMP could be discarded in clean MEUS of adrenal and renal tumors without increasing the incidence of SSI.