Does topical rifampicin reduce the risk of surgical field infection in hernia repair?
Şahin Kahramanca1, Oskay Kaya1, Cem Azılı1, Bahadır Celep2, Emre Gökce1, Tevfik Küçükpınar1
1Department of General Surgery, Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Teaching Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
2Department of General Surgery, Afyon Kocatepe University Faculty of Medicine, Afyon, Turkey
Abstract
Objective: Inguinal hernia operations are common procedures in general surgery. There have been many approaches in the historical development of hernia repair, and tension free repair with mesh is the most common technique today. Although it is a clean wound, antibiotic use is still controversial because of the role of the patch in development of infection. We aimed to determine the probable role of topical rifampicin in patients with tension-free hernia repair and patch support.
Material and Methods: The files of patients with tension-free hernia repair were screened retrospectively. Information and operative notes of patients with synthetic materials were enrolled. The patients were divided into two groups, patients with placebo (G1) and patients with patches with topical rifampicin (G2). Infection rates were compared between the groups in the early postoperative period.
Results: The mean age of the 278 patients who were included study was 49.6±15.39 and the female/male ratio was 10/268. There were recurrences in four patients and superficial infection in 22 patients in the early period. One patient had testis torsion and an orchiechtomy was done. There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of age and gender. The types of hernia and body mass indexes were homogenous in the two groups. In the early postoperative period the infection rates were 16/144 (11.1%) and 6/134 (4.48%) in the groups, respectively, with statistically significant differences (p=0.041).
Conclusion: We suggest that applying rifampicin locally can decrease surgical field infection in operations where patches were used.
Keywords: Inguinal hernia, rifampicin, surgical field infection
Ethics committee approval was received for this study from the ethics committee of Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital (17.12.2012, 06/03).
Written informed consent was obtained from patients who participated in this study.
Externally peer-reviewed.
Concept - Ş.K.; Design - B.C., O.K.; Supervision - Ş.K., T.K.; Funding - T.K.; Data Collection and/or Processing - E.G., C.A., B.C.; Analysis and/or Interpretation - T.K., Ş.K.; Literature Review - E.G., C.A.; Writer - Ş.K., T.K., O.K.; Critical Review - O.K., C.A., B.C.
No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.
The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.