Comparison of short versus long duration of ampicillin and gentamicin for radical hysterectomy.

Prophylactic antibiotic therapy for radical hysterectomy is still controversial. Although the efficacy of antibiotics have been demonstrated, there remains the question of duration of administration. In this study, we retrospectively reviewed 95 patients who underwent radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy for cervical cancer at our institute. The management was uniform except for the duration of antibiotic administration. Group I (34 cases) had ampicillin and gentamicin for 3 days while group II (61 cases) had the same regimen for 7 days. No significant difference was found in terms of postoperative infection (2.9% in group I and 1.6% in group II) or febrile morbidity (32.4% versus 50.8%). Other factors such as the patients' age, body weight, preoperative hemoglobin level, amount of blood loss and blood transfused, operative time, duration of retroperitoneal drain and duration of suprapubic cystostomy. Only operative time had a significant influence on febrile morbidity regardless of the duration of antibiotics administered. In conclusion, the antibiotic administration gave a radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy a very low incidence of postoperative infection. Longer duration of treatment did not appear to lessen postoperative infection nor febrile morbidity. Shorter duration of antibiotic administration needs further evaluation.