Abstract

SAMANIEGO, C  and  PRIMERA CATEDRA DE CLINICA QUIRURGICA, 2 UNIDAD DE CUIDADOS INTENSIVOS, CENTRO MATERNO INFANTIL. HOSPITAL DE CLINICAS. FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS MEDICAS. Universidad Nacional de Asunción et al. Cost/ benefit analysis of antibiotic prophylaxis in elective inguinal hernioplasty. An. Fac. Cienc. Méd. (Asunción) [online]. 2012, vol.45, n.1, pp.24-34. ISSN 1816-8949.

ABSTRACT Introduction: Systematic use of antibiotics is generally accepted as an important factor to prevent surgical infections. Objectives: To evaluate the cost-benefit relationship in the systematic use of antibiotic prophylaxis in elective inguinal hernioplasty, using prosthetic material. Patients and methods: This is a retrospective, descriptive and analytic study of 229 cases of elective inguinal hernioplasty performed at the First Chair of Surgical Clinic between the years 2005 and 2009. The study variables were: antibiotics use, surgical wound infection rate, postoperative infection/ antibiotic relationship, drugs costs, and costs of postoperative wound infection. Results: Antibiotic prophylaxis was adequate in 29% of the cases; frequency of infection rate was of 0.4%, there was no statistical difference between the group that received prophylaxis and the group that did not (0.8 and 0.6%, respectively); the use of antibiotics very scarcely increased the surgery costs, but the infection of the surgical wounds highly increased them. Conclusion: There was no difference in the frequency of postoperative infections as related to the use of antibiotics; the cost of, the prophylactic medications are low, therefore the cost-benefit relationship does not justify their use.

Keywords : Cost-benefit; hernioplasty; Antibiotic prophylaxis.

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