ICYMI: No Antibiotics Before Clean Hand Surgery
A large-database study worth revisiting found surgeons use antibiotics in ways likely to result in harm before clean hand surgery
Editor’s Note: From time to time, CORRelations runs a short post on older, important studies that readers may not have seen because of where they were published. Here is one.
What’s the Claim?
A well-done large-database study found that usage of antibiotics prior to clean hand surgery increased substantially between 2009 and 2015. The absolute increase in usage was from 10.6% to 18.3%, which is a relative increase of over 70% during that span of time. Patients undergoing trigger finger release received antibiotics most commonly, and patients having endoscopic carpal tunnel release were least likely to receive antibiotics, but even those patients got antibiotics more than 11% of the time.
