Pre-surgery dose of antibiotics helps

One dose of an antibiotic just before surgery appears to be just as good as several spread over 24 hours to fight infections at the operation site, saving money and easing fears about bacterial resistance.

Doctors at Hospital Sao Francisco, in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil, said they examined infection rates for more than 12,000 patients who had surgery in 2002 and 2003, roughly half of them after a one-dose protocol using a narrow-spectrum antibiotic was begun. The one-dose method “did not lead to an increase in rates of surgical site infection,” said the report in the November issue of the Archives of Surgery.