Conditions: Simple Hand Lacerations
Keywords: wounds and lacerations hand infection Antibiotics antibacterial agents
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 73
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Research Question: In emergency department patients with simple hand cuts, do prophylactic antibiotics reduce the risk of wound infections?

Detailed description:
Simple hand lacerations, defined as hand lacerations that do not involve special structures such as bones, tendons, vessels, or nerves, are common in the emergency departments. The exact rate of infection in such wounds is unclear. It is also not clear whether prescribing prophylactic antibiotics reduces the risk of infection in simple hand lacerations. The objective of this randomized double blind controlled study is to: 1. Identify the rate of infection in simple hand lacerations, 2. Identify factors or wound characteristics that increase the risk of infection, and 3. Assess whether prescribing prophylactic antibiotics decreases the risk of infections in such wounds compared to placebo.

Arms:
arm 1: clindamycin 300 mg (two 150 mg capsules) every 6 hours for 7 days arm 2: None arm 3: None

Interventions: intervention 1: cephalexin intervention 2: clindamycin intervention 3: placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 500 mg (two 250 mg capsules) every 6 hours for 7 days intervention 2: 300 mg of clindamycin (two 150 mg capsules) every 6 hours for 7 days intervention 3: Two placebo capsules every 6 hours for 7 days

Protocol document: