Ha. Brodie, PROPHYLACTIC ANTIBIOTICS FOR POSTTRAUMATIC CEREBROSPINAL-FLUID FISTULAS - A METAANALYSIS, Archives of otolaryngology, head & neck surgery, 123(7), 1997, pp. 749-752
Objective: To determine the efficacy of prophylactic antibiotics in th
e treatment of posttraumatic cerebrospinal fluid fistulae. Design: Met
a-analysis with literature review. Methods: A MEDLINE search was perfo
rmed to obtain all the reports pertaining to posttraumatic cerebrospin
al fluid fistulae between 1970 and 1995. All the series that provided
data specifying whether prophylactic antibiotics were provided and the
incidence of meningitis were included in the analysis. Results: The f
indings of 6 studies, involving 324 patients, were analyzed. In these
studies, 237 received prophylactic antibiotics and 87 did not. Only 6
of the 237 patients who received prophylactic antibiotics developed me
ningitis, yielding an incidence of 2.5%. Nine (10%) of the 87 patients
who did not receive prophylactic antibiotics developed meningitis. Th
e incidence of meningitis was significantly lower in the patients who
received prophylactic antibiotics than in those who did not receive pr
ophylaxis (Fisher exact test, P=.006). Conclusions: Individually, each
of the studies included in this analysis demonstrated no significant
difference in the incidence of meningitis with prophylactic antibiotic
therapy. The reason for this is that inadequate. numbers of patients
were available at each institution. Pooling the data from the past 25
years revealed a statistically significant reduction in the incidence
of meningitis with prophylactic antibiotic therapy.