Efficacy assessment of two antibiotic prophylaxis regimens in oral and maxillofacial trauma surgery: preliminary results.

The study set out to evaluate the efficacy of two antibiotic prophylaxis regimens in patients with facial fractures admitted to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Traumatology services of the Onofre Lopes University Hospital attached to the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in the period from December 2011 to December 2012. The sample consisted of 74 patients divided into two groups, GI with forty-three patients and GII with 32. Both groups received 2 g of cefazolin, 20 minutes before surgery. The postoperative protocol for each group was randomly determined; group I (single dose) received no antibiotics after surgery but group II (24 h dosage) received 1 g of cefazolin every 6 hours for 24 hours. Postoperative infection incidence was 9.3% (seven patients), six patients in Group I and one in Group II. 85% of the infections were in mandibular fractures. Results were presented qualitatively and quantitatively and the Chi square test (taking the value for p to be < 0.05) showed no statistically significant differences in the efficacies of the two regimens in the comparisons made between the cases of fractures in the upper and middle thirds of the face with those in the lower third (mandibular fractures). Considering mandibular fractures alone, Group II proved to be more efficacious with a p value of 0.02. However, to confirm the tendency shown in the mandibular fracture treatments whereby prolonging antibiotic administration for 24 hours appeared to be beneficial, research needs to be done with much larger sample groups.