Changing prophylactic antibiotic protocol for reducing Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhoeal infections.

Purpose: To determine whether a change in prophylactic antibiotic protocol for orthopaedic surgeries may reduce the frequency of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhoeal infections.

Methods: Records of 1331 patients who underwent trauma or elective surgeries involving implantation of metalwork were reviewed. 231 trauma and 394 elective patients who received intravenous cefuroxime-based antibiotic prophylaxis between August 2006 and January 2007 were compared with 216 trauma and 490 elective patients who received a single dose of gentamicin and flucloxacillin or teicoplanin for antibiotic prophylaxis between August 2007 and January 2008. Diarrhoeal faecal specimens of 148 (33%) trauma patients and 106 (12%) elective patients were examined. The outcome variables were the rates of C difficile infection and early deep wound infection.

Results: There were 32 cases of C difficile-associated diarrhoeal infection and 28 cases of early deep wound infection. The frequency of C difficile-associated diarrhoeal infection decreased after use of the new antibiotic protocol (from 4 to 1%, p = 0.004), particularly in the trauma patients (from 8 to 3%, p = 0.02); in the elective patients the difference was not significant (from 1 to 0.5%, p = 0.27). The change of antibiotic protocol did not significantly affect the incidence of deep wound infections in the trauma (p = 0.46) or elective (p = 0.90) patients. The rate of C difficile infection was 8-fold higher in the trauma than elective patients, both before and after the change of protocol.

Conclusion: Changing antibiotic protocol is one way of reducing the incidence of C difficile-associated diarrhoeal infections in orthopaedic patients, without increasing the rate of deep wound infections.