Should we add vancomycin antibiotic powder to post operative infection prevention in spine surgery? - First update

This Living FRISBEE (Living FRIendly Summary of the Body of Evidence using Epistemonikos) is an update of the summary published in June 2015, based on the detection of a new systematic review not identified in the previous version. Intravenous antibiotic prophylaxis is routinely administered to prevent surgical site infection in spinal surgery. Adding intrawound vancomycin powder before surgical closure might further decrease infection risk. However, its use is controversial. Searching in Epistemonikos database, which is maintained by screening 30 databases, we identified seven systematic reviews that considered 16 studies, including one randomized controlled trial. We combined the evidence using meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table following the GRADE approach. We concluded vancomycin probably does not decrease the risk of infection in low risk surgery, but there is uncertainty about its effects in populations or surgeries with a higher risk because the certainty of the evidence is very low.