title: Systematic review and meta-analysis of the additional benefit of local prophylactic antibiotic therapy for infection rates in open tibia fractures treated with intramedullary nailing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This analysis compared the rate of deep wound infections in patients with open tibia fractures, treated with intramedullary nails, receiving additional locally-delivered antibiotics to those receiving standard care.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two systematic literature searches identified studies reporting infection rates in patients treated with intramedullary nails for tibia fractures receiving systemic antibiotics only (search one) and in patients receiving adjunctive locally-administered antibiotics peri-operatively at the tissue-implant interface (search two). After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 and seven papers from searches one and two, respectively, were included in meta-analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The absolute rate of infection was lower for all Gustilo-Anderson grades of tibia fractures when local antibiotics were administered as adjunctive prophylactic therapy. For severe fractures, classified as GAIII fractures, patients receiving systemic antibiotics only had an infection rate of 14.4 % [95 % CI: 10.5 %, 18.5 %]; adding local antibiotics reduced the rate to 2.4 % [0.0 %, 9.4 %], with an odds ratio of 0.17. Risk of deep wound infections increased with severity of fracture, rising to over 31 % in GIIIB&C fractures for patients receiving systematic antibiotics only, but to below 9 % with additional local antibiotics.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings support consideration of augmenting the antibiotic prophylaxis regimen to include locally-delivered antibiotics. Patients with severe fractures will obtain greatest benefit from infections avoided. No trial directly compared the two treatments for open tibia fractures, limiting the ability to attribute the differences in observed infection rates directly to the treatments themselves. A large comparative study to improve the evidence on relative effect size is merited.
  
  
  METHODS
  Level III.
authors: York Health Economics Consortium, University of York, York, YO10 5NH, UK, joyce.craig@york.ac.uk.
authors: Joyce
authors: J
authors: Craig
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Fuchs
authors: Michelle
authors: M
authors: Jenks
authors: Kelly
authors: K
authors: Fleetwood
authors: Dominik
authors: D
authors: Franz
authors: Joel
authors: J
authors: Iff
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Raschke
mesh_terms: D019072:Antibiotic Prophylaxis; D001858:Bone Nails; D005594:Fracture Fixation, Intramedullary; D005597:Fractures, Open / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D013978:Tibial Fractures / Q000601:surgery*; D014946:Wound Infection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*