Profilaxis antimicrobiana en ortopedia: reporte de 93 pacientes

background: postoperative infection is a complication with a high social and economic cost which may reach sometimes the death of the patient, therefore the importance of preventing and treating this disease in time. objective: to evaluate behavior and results of the prophylactic antimicrobial therapy in patients treated in a basic working group. method: a descriptive observational study was conducted with 93 patients who were applied prophylactic antimicrobial therapy in the university hospital manuel ascunce domenech from december 2009 to july 2010. results: the average age was 43,5 years. a relationship between the sexes was about 2 to 1,4. the method was applied mostly in 28 patients with closed fractures which internal fixation was made. the cefazolin was the most used in 70,9 % of patients. thirty-five patients showed one or more risk factors closely associated with infection, of them one suffered postoperative infection. adverse reactions were found in 4.3 % of patients. conclusions: prophylactic antimicrobial therapy is effective in the prevention of postoperative infection.