CPD Article | EQUINE
(Guidelines for the Prevention & Containment of Antimicrobial Resistance in South African Hospitals 2018)
What’s Not?
1. Prolonged Surgical Prophylaxis
Most guidelines for antibiotic use in equine practice
(including those published by SAEVA) recommend 24
hours penicillin for a clean surgery, 5 days penicillin
and gentamicin for a contaminated surgery and 10 days
penicillin and gentamicin for a high-risk surgery.
This is not in line with guidelines in small animal
or human medicine. BSAVA (British Small Animal
Veterinary Association) recommends no antibiotics for
clean surgeries and < 24 hours antibiotics for clean-
contaminated/contaminated surgeries (https://www.
bsava.com/Resources/Veterinary-resources/PROTECT/
Reducing-Prophylaxis).
WHO guidelines for prevention of surgical site infection
recommend < 24 hours surgical prophylaxis.
There are limited studies investigating efficacy of
duration of surgical prophylaxis in preventing surgical
site infection in horses. However, in a series of
elective arthroscopies in horses in which no surgical
prophylaxis was used the frequency of joint sepsis was
similar to that reported in populations in which surgical
prophylaxis was used (Borg and Carmalt 2013).
There are different risk factors for surgical site infection
in equine veterinary medicine although <25%
respondents gave surgical conditions as a reason to use
or not use antibiotics in an Australian survey of antibiotic
• Volume 21 Issue 2 | May 2019 •
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