Not giving patients antibiotics after surgery to remove an inflamed and enlarged gallbladder did not lead to a greater incidence of infections, according to a study published in JAMA.
About 20 percent of all gallbladder removal surgeries performed in the United States each year are due to acute calculous cholecystitis, or an inflamed and enlarged gallbladder with abdominal pain.
To test the effectiveness of post-surgery antibiotics in these cases, researchers in France performed a randomized study. They assigned 414 patients with mild or moderate acute calculous cholecystitis to continue a preoperative antibiotic regimen or have no antibiotics after their surgery. The study took place at 17 medical centers between May 2010 and August 2012.
They found that in the nontreatment group, postoperative infection rates were at 17 percent. In the antibiotic group, the rates were at 15 percent.
"In the present series, we did not observe a benefit of postoperative antibiotic treatment on infections for patients with acute calculous cholecystitis," the authors concluded.
Using antibiotics can increase costs and promote antibiotic resistance, the authors noted, making the findings important. "Our study demonstrates that postoperative antibiotics following acute calculous cholecystitis are not necessary."
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