INTRODUCTION

Civilian gunshot open-fracture injuries portray a significant health burden to patients. Use of antibiotics is endorsed by guideline recommendations for the prevention of post-traumatic infections, however, antimicrobial selection and their associated outcomes remains unclear. Therefore, we sought to compare infectious and other clinical outcomes between three antimicrobial cohorts in patients with gunshot-related fractures requiring operative intervention.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Patients were identified by retrospectively querying the University of Kentucky Trauma Registry for gunshot wound victims. A narrow regimen, an expanded gram-negative regimen, and a regimen containing a fluoroquinolone antimicrobial were identified for comparison. The primary outcome was a composite of infections at or before 14 days of hospitalization. Secondary endpoints included hospital length of stay, incidence of multidrug resistant bacteria and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization, number of drug-related adverse events, number of Clostridium difficile infections, and 30-day mortality.

RESULTS

252 patients were selected for inclusion: 126 in the narrow regimen, 49 in the expanded gram-negative regimen, and 77 in the fluoroquinolone-based regimen. There were no statistical differences in the primary endpoint of early infectious outcomes between groups (p = 0.1797). The expanded gram-negative regimen was associated with increased hospital length of stay, and increased incidence of multi-drug resistant bacteria and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the remaining secondary endpoints.

CONCLUSION

In this study evaluating civilian gunshot trauma, broad spectrum antibiotic coverage was not associated with improvements in post-traumatic infections. A randomized trial is needed to confirm these results.