The following is the summary of “Is parenteral antibiotic prophylaxis associated with fewer infectious complications in stented, distal hypospadias repair?” published in the December 2022 issue of Pediatric urology by Doersch, et al.

Antibiotic resistance can be kept to a minimum while infectious surgical problems are avoided with the use of antibiotics preemptively administered before surgery. It is not known if antibiotic surgical prophylaxis is helpful in the context of pediatric distal hypospadias repairs. The goal of this research was to determine whether or not administering antibiotics prior to surgery reduced the risk of infection in children having distal hypospadias treatment.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the rate of infection complications in patients who received peri-operative or post-operative antibiotic prophylaxis for hypospadias repairs with those who did not get such prophylaxis. By “infectious complications,” researchers meant things like a urinary tract infection (UTI) or a surgical site infection (SSI). Individuals who received peri-operative parenteral antibiotic prophylaxis had no lower rates of infection complications than those who did not. Oral antibiotic prophylaxis was given to all patients who had experienced infection problems following surgery. One patient who was given parenteral antibiotics before surgery developed C. difficile infection.

To reduce antimicrobial resistance in a safe manner, antibiotic use should be decreased without leading to an increase in infectious surgical consequences. Neither intraoperative or postoperative oral antibiotics were shown to be effective in reducing infection problems following correction of juvenile distal hypospadias. Antibiotics have not been shown to be effective in avoiding infections during or after pediatric hypospadias correction in any of the studies testing their use. It is recommended that doctors rethink prescribing antibiotics in this situation. After a stented repair of distal hypospadias in a child, routine antibiotic prophylaxis does not appear to help prevent infection sequelae.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1477513122001966