Prophylactic antibiotics has no benefit for outcome in clean myringoplasty—A register‐based cohort study from SwedEar

AbstractObjectivesTo investigate if prophylactic antibiotics (PA) in conjunction with myringoplasty of clean and uninfected ears entails a reduction of postoperative infections within 6 weeks after surgery, and whether it affects the healing rate of the tympanic membrane (TM) at follow‐up, 6–24 months after surgery.DesignA retrospective cohort study of prospectively collected data.SettingData extracted from The Swedish Quality Register for Ear Surgery (SwedEar), the years 2013–2019.ParticipantsAll patients in SwedEar with a registered clean conventional myringoplasty (tympanoplasty type I) including a follow‐up visit.Main Outcome MeasuresThe effect of PA use on TM healing rate at follow‐up and postoperative infection within 6 weeks of surgery.ResultsIn the study group (n = 1665) 86.2% had a healed TM at follow‐up. There was no significant difference between the groups that had PA administered (87.2%) or not (86.1%). A total of 8.0% had a postoperative infection within 6 weeks. Postoperative infection occurred in 10.2% of the group that received PA (n = 187) compared with 7.7% of the group that did not receive PA. However, this difference was not statistically significant. Postoperative infection within 6 weeks significantly lowered the frequency of healed TMs.ConclusionPA administered during clean conventional myringoplasty does not improve the chance of having a healed TM at follow up, nor decrease the risk of having a postoperative infection within 6 weeks after surgery.