Efficacy of Prophylactic Antibiotic to Prevent Surgical Site Infection among Patients with Open Mesh Hernioplasty at Chomthong Hospital, Chiangmai Province

Abstract

Open mesh hernioplasty of groin hernia is a common surgical procedure; and surgical site infec­tion is one of the important complications. Standard practice guideline of prophylactic antibiotics used for this surgical procedure is controversy. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of prophylactic antibiotics for open mesh repair of groin hernia at Chomthong Hospital, Chiangmai. It was conducted as a retrospective-cohort study by reviewing electronic medical records of the patients aged 15 years and over who underwent open mesh hernioplasty between October 2015 and September 2016 at Chomthong Hospital. Fisher’s exact test and Student t-test were used according to the data characteristics, and p<0.05 was deemed significant. There were 358 patients included in the study, with mean age of 58.6 years (SD=15.16). Most of them were male (95.83%), and were admitted for elective procedures (88.26%). 286 patients received prophylactic antibiotic and 72 patients did not. There was no different between the goups for geographic data, clinical data and care process. There were no SSIs (0%) in the prophylactic group but two infection without prophylactics were recorded p<0.05 (number needed to treat=36). Both patients who were reported as SSI had multiple risk factors for surgical wound infection. In conclu­sion, this study suggests that prophylactic antibiotics reduced SSI in open mesh repair of the groin hernia. Usage of prophylactic antibiotics in this procedure should be concerned with patient’s risk factors.