Is an Antibiotic Prescription Required After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Cholecystectomy is the definitive treatment for acute calculous cholecystitis (ACC). In the past, the timing of cholecystectomy has been the subject of debate. Early cholecystectomy performed within 72 hours at the beginning of the disease is preferred to first medical treatment and delayed cholecystectomy 6 to 10 weeks after recovery. In many studies, it suggests early cholecystectomy because it provides a definitive solution, faster recovery times, and more rapid return to work.

Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a significant cause of mortality and morbidity after surgery. In the United States alone, more than 300,000 surgical field infections are seen annually. Again, in the United States alone, the budget spent on surgical site infection reaches $ 10 billion. Antibiotic treatment in ACC patients to prevent surgical site infection is a standard practice in the hospital before and after surgery. However, there is controversy over the use of antibiotics to prevent surgical site infection after discharge. The researchers aimed to investigate the effect of antibiotics prescribed on surgical site infection when discharged to patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) for acute calculous cholecystitis.

Patients and Method Patients who were admitted to the General Surgery Clinic with the diagnosis of acute calculous cholecystitis and who underwent early Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy will be included in the study. Patients will be told in detail about the study protocol, and those who accept it will be included in the study. A study consent form, which is written and signed by patients in their handwriting, will be taken. The patients will be staged as Stage 1,2,3 according to the TG13 criteria accepted at the Tokyo 2013 consensus. The anesthesiologist will make ASA classification. Oral intake of the patients will be stopped, and parenteral fluid and anti biotherapy will be applied. The demographic characteristics, comorbidities of the patients, will be recorded in their files, whether they had previous ACC attacks. Patients will be operated within 12-72 hours after hospitalization. Amoxycillin / sulbactam 1 g will be administered parenterally three times a day to patients before and after surgery. Patients included in the post-operative study will be discharged within three days at the latest if the complication has not developed. Just before discharge, the clinical secretary will give a code to each patient with the help of a computer program, and block randomization will be made and divided into two groups. Those who received oral antibiotics (AB group) and those who did not receive antibiotics (HA group).

The primary purpose of antibiotic therapy in ACC is to limit both systemic septic response and local inflammation to prevent SSI in the superficial wound, fascia, and organ cavity. In this study, ampicillin/sulbactam will be used according to the TG18 guidelines (according to recommendation). If the patient is in the AB group, 1 g of ampicillin/sulbactam will be prescribed two times a day and will use for a total of 5-7 days. All demographic features and medical processes of the patients will be recorded electronically with the hospital medical computer program (Deva Data ®).

If SSI is detected by clinical examination and other diagnostic methods (laboratory, ultrasound, and tomography), the antibiotic regimen will be changed in the AB group, and ampicillin/sulbactam will be started in the NA group. Also, superficial and deep SSI will locally be drained, organ SSI will be drained by ultrasonography or tomography-guided.

Sample size calculation: As the reported rate of postoperative SSIs associated with ACC varies between 1% and 15%, it was estimated that 102 patients per group would allow detecting a 10% difference in the rate of complications with 80% power with a confidence interval of 5%. The estimated price of loss to follow-up was 10%; therefore, at least 112 patients were needed to be enrolled for each group.