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Three hundred fifty-eight patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty, total knee arthroplasty, and hip fracture repair were given preventive antibiotics 20 minutes before surgery; administration of antibiotics was continued for either 24 hours or seven days. The 24-hour group (186 operations) had three (1.6%) deep wound infections. The difference in infection rates between groups was not significant.
Nelson et al. (Wed,) studied this question.