Synbiotics, Surgical Infection and Colonization Resistance

In our recent randomized controlled study to assess the effect of perioperative oral administration of synbiotics on surgical outcome in patients undergoing laparoscopic colorectal resection, the efficacy of synbiotics as a treatment to reduce the incidence of infectious complications was not validated. However, this study incorporated molecularbased methods and a large sample size, and microbiological examinations showed that dysbiosis induced by surgery was greatly improved by perioperative synbiotic treatment, resulting in the decrease of potentially pathogenic bacteria, such as Clostridium difficile. This study also provided novel evidence that could explain, in part, the mechanisms whereby probiotics enhance colonization resistance in the gastrointestinal tract.