Abstract: Objective To study the benefit of prophylactic antibiotics (PA) in totally percutaneous aortic endovascular repair
(PEVAR) in the catheterization laboratory for reducing stent-graft infection and postimplantation syndrome (PIS). Methods
The clinical data were analyzed of patients undergoing thoracic endovascular aortic repairs. The patients were divided into
non-PA group and PA group according to the use of prophylactic antibiotics before PEVAR. The diagnosis of infection was
made by two senior physicians with reference to Hospital Acquired Infection Diagnostic Criteria Assessment released by the
Ministry of Health of China. Results The 95 enrolled patients included 35 with PA and 60 without PA group, who were
comparable for baseline characteristics. Infection-related deaths occurred in 1 case in non-PA group and retrograde Stanford
type A dissection and death occurred in 1 case in PA group (1.67% vs 2.85%, P=1.00). The PA and non-PA groups showed no
significant difference in the incidence of postoperative infection (5% vs 2.86%, P=1.000), hospital stay (9.30±7.21 vs 10.06±5.69, P=
0.094), infection-related mortality (1.67% vs 0% , P=1.00), or postoperative fever (70.90% vs 91.43% , P=0.20). The body
temperature showed significant variations at different time points after procedure (F=19.831, P<0.001) irrelevant to the use of
prophylactic antibiotics (F=0.978, P=0.326). Conclusion The current data do not support the benefit of PA in reducing
postoperative infection and PIS in patients undergoing PEVAR, but the patients without PA may have worse clinical outcomes
in the event of postoperative infections.