Prophylactic antibiotics for percutaneous endovascular procedures

Percutaneous endovascular techniques are used increasingly in the vascular armamentarium. Commonly performed as day case procedures under local anaesthetic, they are suited to the highly co-morbid vascular patient population. Furthermore, technological advances have resulted in ever improving outcomes for aneurysmal and occlusive disease. Endovascular procedures such as endovascular aneurysm repair or iliac artery stenting are traditionally associated with reduced infectious complications compared to equivalent open techniques. However, when they do occur, they are equally devastating and often associated with limb loss or death since the only effective treatment is removal of all infected material. The use of prophylactic antibiotics to reduce infectious complications in open surgery has a strong evidence base, but there is no equivalent data for percutaneous endovascular procedures. The Society of Interventional Radiology published formal guidelines for adult antibiotic prophylaxis in 2010. Based on relatively poor quality studies, they nevertheless represent the first official guidance in the field and stress the need for large randomised controlled trials to further guide the debate. Broadly, the benefits of reduced infectious complications must be balanced against the fiscal cost of increased antimicrobial usage, promotion of multi-drug resistant organisms and patient side-effect profiles. The number needed to treat to prevent one infection is high yet without it a small but significant number of patients will suffer serious adverse outcomes secondary to infection of endovascular prostheses. This review article aims to summarise the evidence around the use of prophylactic antibiotics in percutaneous endovascular procedures.