Short-term antibiotic prophylaxis and prostatectomy.

Two hundred patients undergoing prostatic surgery at 2 hospitals were randomly allocated into 4 equal groups. The groups were a control, cephalexin, co-trimoxazole and carfecillin treated groups. The incidence of urinary tract infections and other complications of prostatic surgery were studied in each group after a short-term prophylactic regime of 3 doses of the antibiotic. The incidence of urinary infection was significantly improved from 28% in the control group to 8% and 16% in the co-trimoxazole and cephalexin groups respectively. Carfecillin was not effective in reducing urinary infection. However, all 3 antibiotics reduced the incidence of other infective sequelae.