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. 2011 May 3:342:d2392.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.d2392.

Impact of the NICE guideline recommending cessation of antibiotic prophylaxis for prevention of infective endocarditis: before and after study

Martin H Thornhill  1 , Mark J Dayer, Jamie M Forde, G Ralph Corey, Vivian H Chu, David J Couper, Peter B Lockhart
Affiliations

Impact of the NICE guideline recommending cessation of antibiotic prophylaxis for prevention of infective endocarditis: before and after study

Martin H Thornhill et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objective: To quantify the change in prescribing of antibiotic prophylaxis before invasive dental procedures for patients at risk of infective endocarditis, and any concurrent change in the incidence of infective endocarditis, following introduction of a clinical guideline from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in March 2008 recommending the cessation of antibiotic prophylaxis in the United Kingdom.

Design: Before and after study.

Setting: England. Population All patients admitted to hospital in England with a primary or secondary discharge diagnosis of acute or subacute infective endocarditis.

Main outcome measures: Monthly number of prescriptions for antibiotic prophylaxis consisting of a single 3 g oral dose of amoxicillin or a single 600 mg oral dose of clindamycin, and monthly number of cases of infective endocarditis, infective endocarditis related deaths in hospital, or cases of infective endocarditis with a possible oral origin for streptococci.

Results: After the introduction of the NICE guideline there was a highly significant 78.6% reduction (P < 0.001) in prescribing of antibiotic prophylaxis, from a mean 10,277 (SD 1068) prescriptions per month to 2292 (SD 176). Evidence that the general upward trend in cases of infective endocarditis before the guideline was significantly altered after the guideline was lacking (P = 0.61). Using a non-inferiority test, an increase in the number of cases of 9.3% or more could be excluded after the introduction of the guideline. Similarly an increase in infective endocarditis related deaths in hospital of 12.3% or more could also be excluded.

Conclusion: Despite a 78.6% reduction in prescribing of antibiotic prophylaxis after the introduction of the NICE guideline, this study excluded any large increase in the incidence of cases of or deaths from infective endocarditis in the two years after the guideline. Although this lends support to the guideline, ongoing data monitoring is needed to confirm this, and further clinical trials should determine if antibiotic prophylaxis still has a role in protecting some patients at particularly high risk.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form at http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: (1) MJD received some financial support from the Somerset Health Research Fund; (2) in the last 3 years GRC has acted as a consultant and expert witness for Cubist Pharmaceuticals that might have an interest in the submitted work; (3) no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. None of the authors of this paper were members of the NICE guideline committee that introduced NICE guideline No 64. PBL, however, was a member of the 2007 guideline committee of the American Heart Association.

Figures

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Fig 1 Total number of prescriptions for antibiotic prophylaxis (amoxicillin 3 g or clindamycin 600 mg) dispensed each month by type of prescriber. Red lines represent moving average figure for prescriptions every three months
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Fig 2 Monthly number of cases of infective endocarditis. Also plotted are separate lines for linear trend within 2 standard deviations (broken lines) for periods before and after introduction of NICE guideline. Red lines represent moving average figure for number of cases every three months
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Fig 3 Proportion of infective endocarditis cases recorded each month with a code for streptococci or staphylococci as cause. Red lines represent moving average figure for cases every three months
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

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