A new study casts doubt on international guidelines advising up to a week of prophylactic antibiotics in patients with cirrhosis and upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding.

Pooled data from 14 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) found a high probability that no or shorter durations of antibiotic prophylaxis is not worse than longer durations in preventing death from any cause in these patients.

The findings suggest that recommendations for routine antibiotic prophylaxis in patients with cirrhosis and upper GI bleeding “should be reassessed,” the authors said.

They acknowledged, however, that the studies were of low-to-moderate quality and higher quality randomized clinical trial data are needed.

The study , with first author Connor Prosty, MD, Faculty of Medicine, Quebec, Canada, was pu

See Full Page