Analysis of antibiotics selection in patients undergoing appendectomy in a Chinese tertiary care hospital

BACKGROUND: To investigate the status of antibiotics use in acute appendicitis patients who undergo appendectomy in a Chinese tertiary care hospital. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 93 patients who underwent appendectomy from June 1, 2011 to May 30, 2012 and had recorded use of intravenous antibiotics. We defined simple appendicitis and suppurative appendicitis as mild appendicitis. Gangrenous appendicitis and perforated appendicitis were classified as advanced appendicitis. The occurrence of advanced appendicitis, postoperative complications and length of hospital stay were the three major end points for outcomes analysis. RESULTS: 100 % of the patients received antibiotics therapy before and after operation. 45 patients received Fluoroquinolones (48.4 %), 41 patients received Cephalosporins (44.1 %) and 7 patients received Carbapenems (7.5 %). We found no statistical difference between antibiotics selection and the occurrence of advanced appendicitis (P = 0.3337). Both the monovariate analysis and multivariate analysis showed no statistical difference between antibiotics selection and the postoperative complications (P > 0.05). The average stay of patients receiving Fluoroquinolones was 2.6 days shorter than patients who received Cephalosporins (P = 0.0085). CONCLUSION: It is a lack of a standardized guideline for antibiotics selection in our hospital. All the antibiotics prescription were empirical. We tended to choose high levels of antibiotics, pay insufficient attention to the anaerobic bacteria and have a long duration of antibiotics therapy. We also found that antibiotics selection bore no relationship with the occurrence of advanced appendicitis and postoperative complications. Fluoroquinolones may lead to a shorter hospital stay, but this result may also be affected by the fewer underlying diseases and lower severity of the patients.