Tag Archives: antibiotics

Head

Are Prophylactic Antibiotics Needed For Facial Fractures?

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The use of prophylactic antibiotics in patients with facial fractures has been controversial since forever. Some trauma professionals argue that these fractures, many of which involve a sinus or the mouth, should be considered as open fractures.

Several studies on the use of antibiotics prophylactically, preoperatively, and postoperatively have shown a significant amount of variability. A few have shown no benefit from the use of short-, long-, or no antibiotics. In fact, the Surgical Infection Society issued a practice guideline on antibiotic use in facial fractures. Essentially, they recommended that antibiotics not be administered to patients who do not require surgery. And for operative fractures, they recommended against pre- or post-operative antibiotics.

A recently published study examined current practices regarding antibiotic administration, timing, and adverse events. The null hypothesis was that prophylactic antibiotics would not reduce facial fracture-associated infectious complications in nonoperative facial fractures.

The AAST Facial Fracture Study Group performed a prospective, observational study of adult patients who did not undergo operative repair of their facial fractures. Patients receiving antibiotics for other causes,  those who were immunocompromised, and patients with bowel injuries were excluded. The primary outcome was any related infection, drainage, or follow-up visit requiring antibiotics. Secondary outcomes included demographic indicators such as length of stay, ventilator time, discharge disposition, and readmission within 30 days.

Here are the factoids:

  • A total of 1,835 patients were studied, and two-thirds (64%) did not receive any antibiotics
  • Infections developed in 0.7% of patients without antibiotics and 1.7% with
  • The vast majority of fractures in all patients (84%) were not considered open (no mucosal exposure)
  • Antibiotic administration had a significant association with infectious complications, although the duration of antibiotics did not seem to make a difference

The authors concluded that infection rates were very low despite the majority of patients receiving no antibiotics.

Bottom line: This study provides another set of data points that show us that antibiotics are not necessary in many facial fractures. This is an observational study, so there were wide variations in practice patterns that make the study more difficult to interpret.

There was a relatively small number of patients with “open fractures” that involved exposure to the mucosa. This weakens the study conclusions for this group.

This study joins a growing number that would indicate that nonoperatively managed facial fractures do not require antibiotics. For those that do need surgery, the usual perioperative antibiotic rules still apply.

Reference: Prophylactic antibiotic use in trauma patients with non-operative facial fractures: A prospective AAST multicenter trial. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 98(4):p 557-564, April 2025.

Complications

Early Antibiotic Administration In Open Fractures

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Recommendations for open fracture management has evolved over the past 20 years. The old-timey rule used to be: all open fractures need to be treated within 8 hours. This treatment could be washout and ORIF, washout and external fixation, or just washout alone. The washout was the constant across all types of management.

Then the orthopedics literature began to suggest that “lesser” fractures (Gustilo I – II) could go a bit longer. Some centers extended their required time to washout up to 12 or even 16 hours. Subsequently, the value of early IV antibiotics was recognized, and the time to washout started to change again.

Now, we have recommendations for early IV antibiotics competing with the old recommendations for prompt washout. Who is winning?

There are two recent papers that seem to provide conflicting recommendations regarding antibiotics. The first is in process for publication by the ortho group at San Francisco General Hospital. They studied 230 open fracture patients at their Level I Trauma center over a five-year period. They monitored for surgical site infection that occurred during the first 90 days after injury.

Here are the factoids:

  • It took 450 consecutive patients to find the 230 study patients due to these exclusion criteria: missing documentation of antibiotic administration, delayed presentation, and loss to followup
  • There were 169 Gustilo Type I or II fractures and 61 Type III fractures
  • They noted a trend (p = 0.053) toward infection in patients who had antibiotic administration an average of 83 minutes after arrival vs those who received them within one hour
  • Patients who received their antibiotics 2 hours after arrival had a 2.4x increase in likelihood for infection within 90 days

But there was another paper published in the same journal this year that shows the opposite result. This one is from the University of Bristol in the UK. This one reviewed only Gustilo Type III fractures and observed changes in the deep infection rate, before and after the National Health Service guidance on antibiotic administration changed from within three hours to one hour post-injury.

Some more factoids for you:

  • A total of 176 patients were identified at a single center, and only 152 were left after the usual exclusions
  • Average time to antibiotic administration decreased from 180 minutes to 160 minutes after the new guidance was issued (60 minutes(!))
  • Only 12 patients developed deep infections with a median followup of 26 months
  • On regression analysis, no obvious factors  for increased risk were identified

Bottom line: So what gives? Two different answers: antibiotics given after 2 hours is associated with an increased risk of infection, vs no difference?

No, not really. Talk about apples to bananas. The first study looks at all open fractures, not just the most severe. It does not really define “surgical site infection,” so can we assume it was any infection? We don’t know. The second study looked only at deep infections.

The sample sizes are marginal in both studies, although the first was able to show a significant result despite this. And, of course, these are association studies, so other factors could be at play to manifest an infection or not. Both groups showed an 8-11% infection rate of some kind in their Gustilo Grade III fractures. 

But the biggest issue with the second study is that, despite guidance that antibiotics should be given within an hour, the average time decreased from 3 hours to only 2:40. This is still beyond the two hour threshold to higher infection rates suggested in the first paper.

So what do I make of all of this? The UK paper is lacking the power and enough of a treatment change to be taken seriously. The San Francisco paper shows borderline results with a 2.4x increase in all infections if antibiotics are given after 2 hours. 

So until we have better data and larger series, 1 hour antibiotic administration seems like a painless way to decrease the likelihood of an infection. But whether that can safely delay the time to washout remains to be seen.

References:

  • Delay of Antibiotic Administration Greater than 2 Hours Predicts Surgical Site Infection in Open Fractures. Injury, in press, May 29, 2020.
  • Time to intravenous antibiotic administration (TIbiA) in severe open tibial fractures: Impact of change to national guidance. Injury 51:1086-1090, 2020.
Thorax

Best of AAST #6: Antibiotics For Chest Tubes??

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For as long as I can remember (nearly 50 years worth of literature) there has been some debate about giving antibiotics after chest tube insertion to decrease the infection rate. The pendulum moved back and forth for decades, never getting very far into the “give antibiotics” side. It’s been quite a while since I remember any new papers on this, and I thought the debate had been resolved in favor of never using them.

But then I see an abstract from the AAST multi-institutional trials group studying presumptive antibiotics after chest tube insertion! They conducted a prospective, observational study at 22 Level I trauma centers, enrolling nearly 2,000 patients. They matched patients in antibiotic and no antibiotic groups, arriving at (only) 272 patients in each group.

Here are the results:

Bottom line: First, it’s a little disappointing that the numbers were so low with a trial that includes 22 trauma centers. Did they have a hard time finding centers that would give antibiotics? Or was it just hard to match patients for the variables they were looking at? Regardless, there were no significant differences in infectious complications, and a non-clinically significant difference in ICU stay with antibiotics.

Why won’t this die? If there are so few papers that show an actual benefit from giving antibiotics after chest tube insertion with 50 years of data, then it’s very unlikely that it will ever be shown to be necessary!

Reference: Presumptive antibiotics for tube thoracostomy for traumatic pneumothorax. Session XXII Paper 49, AAST 2018.

General

EAST 2016: (F)utility Of Antibiotic Use In Facial Fractures

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The majority of
trauma patients presenting with facial fractures are managed without surgery.
Dogma in the facial fracture literature indicates that antibiotics should be
administered for some period of time, typically 7-10 days, for fractures that
involve one of the sinuses.

Although this idea
and practice have been around for a long time, there is no good literature out
there to support it. Most medical professionals are now aware of the downside
to giving unnecessary antibiotics, including allergic reactions, C. Diff infections,
and promotion of antibiotic resistance.

A group at Geisinger
Medical Center in Danville, PA, performed a four-year retrospective review of
their registry data involving nonoperatively managed facial fractures. They
stratified their patients into three groups: no antibiotics, brief antibiotics
(1-5 days), and prolonged antibiotics (>5 days). A total of 289 patients
were studied.

Here are the factoids:

  • 17% received no antibiotics, 22% received a short course, and 61% got them
    for more than 5 days (!)
  • There were no soft tissue infections in any of the groups
  • There was 1 C. Diff infection, which occurred in the prolonged
    antibiotic group. This was not statistically significant.

Bottom
line: Granted, this was a small, retrospective study. But absolutely no difference
in soft tissue infections was seen, and fear of infection is the usual
justification for the use of antibiotics in these patients. A single case of C.
Diff colitis was noted, and it just happened to occur in the prolonged
antibiotic group. It’s time that we consider abandoning the blanket use of
antibiotics for facial fractures involving the sinuses.

Reference: Utility of
prophylactic antibiotics for non-operative facial fractures. EAST 2016 Poster
abstract #11.

General

SCIP: Importance Of Prophylactic Antibiotics In Trauma Laparotomy

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Quite a lot of research has been done on the efficacy of prophylactic antibiotics in the prevention of infectious complications after surgical procedures. Antibiotics are now routinely given prior to most elective surgical procedures. In the US, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has formalized this into part of the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP), which mandates the use of an appropriate antibiotic within 1 hour preop and stopping it within 24 hours postop.

But what about emergent cases, like trauma laparotomy? Ensuring timely antibiotic administration is difficult due to the rapid events leading up to the operation. And sometimes it is not clear whether a hollow viscus injury has occurred until after start of operation, so the antibiotic choice may change in the middle of the case.

Two busy urban trauma centers with high penetrating injury rates looked at one year of experience in patients undergoing trauma laparotomy. They compared surgical site infections (SSI) in patients who received SCIP-compliant antibiotic administration vs those who did not.

Here are the factoids:

  • Patient mix was 30% blunt, 44% gunshot, 27% stab wounds
  • There were 151 SCIP-compliant patients and 155 noncompliant ones
  • Half of the noncompliant group did not receive the appropriate antibiotic (usually Cefazolin in hollow viscus injury), and half had antibiotics given for more than 24 hours
  • SCIP-compliant patients had significantly fewer wound infections and shorter length of stay. Mortality was the same.

Bottom line: I recommend adhering to SCIP prophylactic antibiotic guidelines for trauma laparotomy. There is no reason why this subset of patients should be treated any differently, and this study presents evidence that it is beneficial. Using the SCIP guidelines in emergent surgery reinforces the usual preop routine in hospitals that have already embraced them. In general, blunt trauma patients undergoing laparotomy should receive prophylaxis that covers skin organisms. Since penetrating trauma has a much higher chance of involving the intestinal tract, broader spectrum antibiotics should be selected. In either case, use the antibiotic that has been selected for this purpose by your hospital. And be sure they are stopped during the first 24 hours.

Reference: “SCIP"ping antibiotic prophylaxis guidelines in trauma: the consequences of noncompliance. J Trauma 73(2):452-456, 2012.