179 Antibiotic Prophylaxis for Oral Lacerations: Practice in an Urban Emergency Department

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Most of the studies to date that have attempted to examine the use of prophylactic antibiotics in patients with oral lacerations have been inadequately powered leading to inconclusive results. The lack of compelling available research has led to practice variation by emergency physicians. The purpose of this study was to examine the emergency physician practice of prescribing prophylactic antibiotics for patients who have oral lacerations in an urban emergency department (ED). A secondary outcome measure was the infection rate of those who were or were not prescribed antibiotics.