Abstract: Introduction: Orthopedic wounds are traumatic wounds due to hard and/or soft tissue trauma. Antibiotics are most commonly and frequently prescribed drugs for long periods in orthopedic department. Use of antibiotics depends on clinical need of patient, known sensitivities to infecting organism and also depends on the evidence gathered by the orthopedic surgeons throughout their clinical practice. Hence our study aimed to identify various antibiotics prescribed in the orthopedic wound and also to highlight the switch patterns of these antibiotics.
Methodology: A prospective observational study was conducted for a period of eight months; data was collected and analyzed according to inclusion and exclusion criteria and ANOVA was applied to obtain the statistical outcome of results.
Discussion: Out of total 115 cases, Closed fractures (44.34%) and Open fractures (41.74%) had high incidence. Total 17 antibiotics were prescribed for 365 times, with Cefotaxime (25.50%), Cefuroxime (17.8%) and Amikacin (14.52%) were most frequent. 9 Different types of drug switches (1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3) were present in the study which are mainly due to antibiotic resistance & sensitivity, wound status (size, severity, type) and type of micro organism to obtain better therapeutic outcome.
Conclusion: Our study concludes that, frequency of antibiotic(s) prescription is quite high in the department. Furthermore lack of serology assay makes it difficult to choose appropriate antibiotic and leads to increased number of antibiotic switch. This study highlights 5, 6 & even 7 antibiotics per case also. A systemic approach must be initiated to streamline the appropriate antibiotic prescription and a standard antibiotic guideline for the department must be formulated.
