Prospective clinical trial of antibiotics for pulmonary resections.

One hundred and seventy-one patients undergoing pulmonary resection were included in a prospective randomized clinical study evaluating the efficacy of prophylactic antibiotics. Eight-three patients randomly chosen received no parenteral antibiotics and 88 received a short course of cephalothin intravenously. Topical antibiotics were used in the pleural cavity and would of all patients. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of days of postoperative fever, number of postoperative septic complications and length of postoperative stay. However, when postoperative infectious complications developed in the antibiotic group, they were often secondary to gram-negative organisms resistant to cephalothin.