The role of nitroimidazole derivates in bacterial infections-metronidazole prophylaxis in appendectomy.

The commonest complication of appendicetomy is surgical sepsis, the incidence of which may vary from 4% for normal appendices to 77% for gangrenous or perforated appendices. Although some of these infections are relatively trivial others are serious or even life-threatening. In an effort to reduce the incidence of serious sepsis surgeons have used a variety of topical and systemic prophylactic antibacterial agents such as penicillin, ampicillin, tetracycline, lincomycin, tobramycin, cephalosporins, neomycin, bacitracin, polymyxin and povidone iodine. Although none of these prophylactic procedures has been consistently effective, appropriate systemic antibiotics generally reduce the incidence of intra-abdominal sepsis, while appropriate local treatment reduces the incidence of wound infection. Most reports on the chemoprophylaxis of sepsis after appendicectomy have been concerned solely with clinical aspects of infection and have not considered the nature of the infecting agents. During the last few years there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of non-sporing anaerobes as the major cause of sepsis after surgery of the gastrointestinal tract. Studies carried out at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital and subsequently at other centres have shown that systemic metronidazole, which is a specifically anaerobicidal agent, is highly effective in preventing the development of sepsis due to anaerobes in postappendicetomy patients.