Prophylactic antibiotics have been used for long time to decrease the infection rate in biliary surgery. The need for prophylactic antibiotic administration as preoperative preparation of patients who will do elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy may not be as important as it is thought.

The aim of this study was to assess the role of prophylactic antibiotics in elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy. A prospective study was done including 79 patients, all had elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy. They were divided into two groups, Group A; 40 patients who had IV antibiotic, and Group B;39 patients who received IV placebo. All the samples (gall bladder, gall stones and bile] were cultured for aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms.
Infection was detected in ten (12.6%) patients in both groups. In Group A, 5 patients had infection in the form of superficial wound infection (3 patients), chest infection (1 patient) and subhepatic collection in (1 patient). Infection in group B occurred in five patients, 3 of them developed wound infection and one patient had urinary tract infection and the last one had chest infection.

According to the data from the study, the use of prophylactic antibiotics did not decrease the rate of post operative infection in elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy.