The occurrence of bacteraemia with skin surgery.

The need for chemoprophylaxis for bacterial endocarditis is partly dependent on the risk of bacteraemia associated with the procedure, which has not been adequately defined for skin surgery. The incidence of postoperative bacteraemia in 149 immunocompetent out-patients with non-infected lesions was 0.7% (95% CI 0.3-3.8%). Procedures included excisions, flaps, grafts and micrographically controlled surgery. Coagulase-negative staphylococcus was the most common skin isolate at the site of surgery, present in 68.5% of patients. The most effective chemoprophylaxis would be intravenous vancomycin, which is inconvenient and has an inherent risk of morbidity. Given the low incidence of bacteraemia and the disadvantages of the optimum chemoprophylaxis, surgery on non-infected lesions does not warrant prophylactic antibiotics to prevent the very low risk of bacterial endocarditis.