ABS Summary Statement: Guidelines on antibiotic prophylaxis in breast surgery

2025 Update

This ABS Summary Statement has been reviewed and is still valid. The Cochrane review, which informed this guidance, was revised in 2019 and is included in the Information Hub

A more recent meta-analysis felt that breast surgery should no longer be classified as clean surgery, and that prophylactic antibiotics should be administered regularly.  View Antibiotic prophylaxis in breast surgery: a meta-analysis to identify the optimal strategy to reduce infection rates in breast surgery from July 2022 here.

A recent RCT published in September 2022 in JAMA concluded that there was no evidence for multiple does of antibiotics compared to a single dose for implant based breast reconstruction.  View Effectiveness of single vs multiple doses of prophylactic intravenous antibiotics in implant-based breast reconstruction.  View the paper here.