Observational StudyDetermining the Necessity for Postoperative Antibiotics After Salivary Stent Placement

Salivary duct stent placement is a common practice to maintain duct patency after salivary duct repair or interventional sialoendoscopy; procedures performed to manage salivary duct pathology such as stenosis, traumatic injury or most commonly salivary duct stones. It is common practice for patients to receive perioperative antibiotics while undergoing interventional sialoendoscopy and postoperative oral antibiotic therapy with Clindamycin or Augmentin for 10-14 days, if a short term (2 week) salivary duct stenting was considered necessary due to the nature of the intervention. However, In reviewing the literature, there are controversial trials that indicate post-operative antibiotics may not be best practice in all surgical scenarios, as the adverse events ie. gastrointestinal disturbances, nausea, Clostridium difficile (C.diff) infection and antibiotic resistance over time surrounding overuse of antibiotics may outweigh the clinical need for the antibiotic regiment and the chances of post-operative infection.