[Antibiotic prophylaxis in cardiac surgery: practice patterns]. / Antibioprophylaxie en chirurgie cardiaque: enquête de pratique.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the prescription patterns in French and foreign centres for antibiotic prophylaxis in cardiac surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Phone and written surveys concerned 64 French and 70 foreign centres. It focused on the first injection, the duration of treatment and the recommended agents. RESULTS: 87% of the French centres and 67% of the foreign centres answered the questionnaire. The first injection took place at anaesthesia induction in all French centres but during administration of premedication in 11% of foreign centres (p < 0.05). The duration of prophylaxis was restricted to the intraoperative period only in 20% and 15% of centres, respectively (ns), as specified by the recommendations. No French centres carried on the antibiotics more than 48 h versus 11% of foreign centres (p < 0.05). Cephalosporines of the second generation were prescribed in 84 and 49% of centres, respectively (p < 0.05). The combination of two antibiotics was less frequent in France than in foreign countries (5 versus 17%, p < 0.01). In absence of betalactamin allergy glycopeptides were not utilized in France versus 8% in foreign countries (p < 0.05). In case of allergy vancomycin was used in 66% of French and 42% of foreign centres. CONCLUSION: The French recommendations may have influenced favourably the antibiotic choice but the prophylaxis duration was too long in most of the non French European centres.