Background: Perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis may prevent infection following renal transplantation but it also contributes to development of resistant microorganisms. With refined surgical techniques, improved graft preservation, and immunosuppressive monitoring during recent decades one can question the present use of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis. We retrospectively evaluated the incidence of infection in our renal transplant centre where antibiotic prophylaxis is not routinely used in renal recipients. Concurrently we performed a survey of perioperative antibiotic use to establish the current world-wide practice.
Methods: Infection episodes were evaluated from records of 448 adult renal transplant recipients (January 1994 to August 1996) at our centre. A questionnaire was mailed to 103 centres addressing the number of kidney transplantations in 1995, donor source (living vs cadaveric) and details on use of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis.
Results: Single-centre study. Renal transplantation was performed without antibiotic prophylaxis in 377 patients (84%). Thirteen patients (3.4%) had early postoperative infections, nine with urinary-tract infection tended to have urinary catheter for a longer period than those without infection (5.0 +/- 2.7 vs 3.4 +/- 1.4 days, P = 0.27) and cadaveric kidney recipients to have higher incidence of infections (4.5 vs 1.5% P = 0.14). All infection episodes were successfully treated. The infection incidence in 71 (16%) 'high-risk' patients selected for antibiotic treatment was 4.2%. World-wide survey. Data were obtained from 101 centres in five continents representing 10532 renal transplants. Ninety centres (89%) used perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis.
Conclusion: The infection incidence in patients who did not receive perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis was the same as in a small group of selected patients who received prophylaxis. The incidence was lower than usually reported in the literature. In contrast perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis is given to all patients in almost 90% of transplant centres worldwide. A reduction of prophylactic antibiotic use is encouraged.