Are Postoperative Antibiotics Necessary for Acute Cholecystitis?

For patients with mild or moderate acute calculous cholecystitis, continuing antibiotic therapy after surgery showed no benefit in an open-label randomized trial.

Acute calculous cholecystitis is one of the most common reasons for emergency admissions to surgical services, but research on the value of antibiotic therapy for this condition is scarce. Shorter durations of antibiotic therapy are now being used for appendicitis, and concerns about complications of antibiotic therapy are increasing. Given those realities, investigators in France randomized 414 patients with acute calculous cholecystitis (48% mild, 52% moderate) to receive a postoperative 5-day course of amoxicillin–clavulanic acid or no antibiotics in an open-label noninferiority trial. Participants were enrolled from May 2010 to August 2012 at 17 centers.

The rate of postoperative infections was similar between the antibiotic and untreate…

Reviewing Author

Richard T. Ellison III, MD

Disclosures

Consult/Advisory BoardAcurx Pharmaceuticals, LLC;

Grant/Research SupportDoctors Company Foundation, Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Richard T. Ellison III, MD

Disclosures

Consult/Advisory BoardAcurx Pharmaceuticals, LLC;

Grant/Research SupportDoctors Company Foundation, Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Are Postoperative Antibiotics Necessary for Acute Cholecystitis?

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Reviewing Author