| Abstract: | A total of 37490 medical histories of patients with "pure" and conditionally "pure" operations were analysed with a purpose of studying the scales of hospital infections in surgical inpatients and the effect of the prophylactic use of antibiotics on the frequency of postoperative complications. It was found that postoperative purulent complications developed in 10-25 per cent of patients. Antibiotics and mainly penicillin and streptomycin were used in the treatment of 75 per cent of patients before, during and after operations. The prophylactic use of the antibiotics in mass operations did not prevent the development of infections. Infiltrates and purulent wounds were more frequent (P less than 0.001) in patients subjected to the antibiotic prophylaxis. This indicates that the use of the antibiotics for preventing possible complications in patients with the "pure" operations and in the majority of patients with the conditionally "pure" operations is not advisable. The strategy of the rational use of antibiotics requires that the staff of the large hospitals should include a chemotherapeutist for defining the tactics of chemotherapy and controlling the use of antibiotics which should promote a decrease in the incidence of hospital infections and in the rate of lethality. |
