Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Post-surgery infections in dogs and cats after skin biopsies
By Pieper, Jason B et al.·Published in Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association·2022·From the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Evaluation for Postoperative Infections Following Cutaneous Punch Biopsies in Dogs and Cats: 154 Cases (2013-2018).
Plain-English summary
Dogs and cats undergoing a skin biopsy had a very low chance of developing infections afterward, with only 1.9% of cases showing any signs of infection. In this study, 128 dogs and 26 cats were evaluated, and only 3 dogs developed infections, while no cats did. The risk of complications was slightly higher if the biopsy was taken from the trunk area of the body. Overall, the findings suggest that giving antibiotics before a skin biopsy is not needed if there are no signs of infection beforehand.
People also search for: dog skin biopsy infection risk · cat skin biopsy recovery · do dogs need antibiotics after surgery
Abstract
Antimicrobial stewardship is becoming more important every day with increasing bacterial resistance and limitations on antibiotics. Prophylactic antibiotics are not necessary with all procedures, which has been shown previously with a variety of human and veterinary surgeries. Medical records were retrospectively evaluated for cases who had a cutaneous punch biopsy performed between 2013 and 2018 including the following information: species, signalment, concurrent diseases, concurrent medications, location of biopsy, histopathologic diagnosis, and bacterial infections postoperatively. The prevalence of secondary infections, due to punch biopsies in all animals, was 1.9% and further divided into 2.3% (3/128) of dogs and 0% (0/26) of cats. It was determined that the relative risk of developing complications from punch biopsy was 0.06 (0.01-0.93) when diagnosing a dermatologic disease versus a cutaneous mass (neoplastic and nonneoplastic), which was statistically significant. The risk increased 2.16 (0.16-59.91) times if the biopsy site was the trunk, which includes the neck, thorax, and abdomen. These results indicate that in veterinary medicine, postoperative complications are uncommon with cutaneous punch biopsies. The administration of prophylactic antibiotics in dogs and cats is unnecessary when performing a punch biopsy when there is no infection present at the time of biopsy.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36049237/