Abstract

Prolonged post-surgical antibiotic administration may be of less advantage in prevention of post-surgical infections. This study therefore, aimed at investigating the prolonged effect of empiric administration of three most-prescribed antibiotics (amoxicillin, cefotaxime and oxytetracycline) by veterinary practices in Southwest Nigeria on intestinal bacterial population of dogs undergoing partial, non-laparoscopic gastrectomy. Using conventional quantitative and qualitative microbial culture procedures, the total bacterial populations were mostly too numerous to count (TNTC) before gastrectomy but log103-105 cfu/mL after, while control were log 105-107 cfu/mL after gastrectomy. On general-purpose, special, differential and selective culture media, total bacterial counts with increasing post-operative days were- amoxicillin (11 mg/kg) day 4: log 105-10-9/TNTC cfu/mL vs. day 8: log 103-105 cfu/mL; cefotaxime (25 mg/kg) day 4: log 103-108/TNTC/cfu/mL vs. day 8: log 102-105 cfu/mL; oxytetracycline (10 mg/kg) day 4: log 104-109 TNTC cfu/mL vs. day 8: log 102-106 cfu/mL. Total bacterial counts of control animals were- day 4: log 105-108/TNTC cfu/mL vs. day 8: log 105-109. Total qualitative populations of predominant, easily-recoverable aerobic and anaerobic rectal canine bacteria, >Bacillus, Citrobacter aerogenes, Clostridium, E. coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Proteus, Pseudomonas, Salmonella, Shigella, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus and lactobacilli were significantly less after gastrectomy but reductions in post-operative bacterial populations were mostly more pronounced among the anaerobes (lactobacilli and Clostridium perfringens). No post-operative infection was recorded among all the experimental animals, including the control animals. In conclusion, this study confirmed significant reduction effect of prolonged empiric antibiotic administration on rectal (intestinal) bacterial populations of experimental local dogs that had partial, non-laparoscopic gastrectomy.

Keywords:

Canine bacterial populations, colonisation resistance, dogs, post-operative infection, veterinary gastrointestinal surgery, veterinary practices and public health, zoo noses,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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The authors have no competing interests.