Preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis in acute cholecystectomy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) in patients admitted with acute cholecystitis is considered the preferred, feasible and safe mode of managing gallstone disease. The objective of this study is to evaluate the role of single-dose pre-operative prophylactic antibiotics in patients undergoing emergency LC for mild to moderate acute cholecystitis. METHODS: All randomized control trials (RCTs) reporting the use of single-dose pre-operative prophylactic antibiotics in patients undergoing acute cholecystectomy were retrieved from the search of standard medical electronic databases and analysis was conducted by using the principles of meta-analysis on the statistical software RevMan version 5. RESULTS: Standard medical databases search produced only 3 RCTs on 781 patients undergoing acute cholecystectomy. There were 384 patients in single dose pre-operative antibiotics group whereas 397 patients were recruited in the no-antibiotics group. In the random effects model analysis, the use of single-dose preoperative prophylactic antibiotics in patients undergoing acute cholecystectomy for mild to moderate cholecystitis failed to demonstrate any extra advantage of reducing the risk of [risk ratio (RR) =0.69; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.46–1.03; Z=1.80; P=0.07] infective complications. There was no heterogeneity [Tau(2) =0; Chi(2) =1.74, df =2 (P=0.42; I(2)=0%)] among included studies. CONCLUSIONS: A preoperative single dose of prophylactic antibiotics in patients undergoing acute LC for mild to moderate acute cholecystitis does not offer extra benefits to reduce infective complications.