Comparison of Cefazolin and Cefoxitin

Perioperative administration of antibiotics for wound prophylaxis is an accepted practice for many types of surgical procedures. The benefits of antibiotic prophylaxis have been demonstrated using animal models as well as clinical studies. Perioperative antibiotics have proved efficacy in situations in which the likelihood of infection is high, such as colonic procedures, some gastric surgery, and operations on the infected biliary tree. The cephalosporins are effective prophylactic agents. More than half of the patients who receive perioperative antibiotics are given one of these agents [I]. The merits of each drug, route of administration, duration of treatment, and breadth of antimicrobial coverage remain to be defined. The present study compares the effectiveness of two different cephalosporins, cefazolin and cefoxitin. The former offers no anaerobic protection, whereas the latter is the only cephalosporin that offers coverage against this category of bacteria.