Antimicrobial (antibiotic) prophylaxis and surgery

• a meta-analysis investigated the use of antimicrobial prophylaxis in surgery (1)
  • the study authors concluded that:
    • as well as antibiotic prophylaxis being a generally effective intervention for preventing postoperative wound infection, the level of this effectiveness would appear to be reasonably independent of what type of surgery is being considered
    • "...suggest that perhaps a sensible philosophy would be to assume that antibiotic prophylaxis is effective in reducing the risk of wound infection for all types of surgery, even ones where no clinical trial data exists and make exceptions to this rule if, for certain types of surgery, it can be proved to the contrary"

Reference:

• Bowater RJ et al. Is antibiotic prophylaxis in surgery a generally effective intervention? Testing a generic hypothesis over a set of meta-analysesAnn Surg. 2009 Apr;249(4):551-6