A major Dutch study has said that administering antibiotics as a precaution to patients who are in intensive care units shows a reduction in the death risk. The findings indicate that if antibiotics are administered even before an infection develops the chances of people developing resistance to them gets reduced.

The study from the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and was conducted on 6000 Dutch patients from thirteen hospitals in the Netherlands to compare the effects of different antibiotic treatments. The study was conducted between 2004 and 2006 on patients who were to either spend three days in the ICU or be on a ventilator for two days. The patients were divided into three groups where the first group received an antibiotic paste which was applied orally four times a day, the second were given antibiotics through a gastric tube intravenously and with an oral paste while the third group got routine ICU treatment.

The researchers found that the patients who received oral antibiotics had an 11 % lower risk of dying, while those who received oral and intravenous combinations were 13 % less likely to die as compared to people who did not receive the antibiotics. None of the patients developed antibiotic resistance "I believe we should revise the antibiotic policy for the ICU. Because the study was conducted in thirteen Dutch hospitals, the conclusions can be implemented throughout the country. We have seen that using antibiotics clearly results in a reduction in the number of deaths, and ICUs should make use of this knowledge," Anne Marie de Smet, a researcher and anesthesiologist-intensivist at UMC University Medical Center Utrecht, said in a statement.

According to the World Health Organization hospital acquired infections as a major cause of death and disability worldwide. Hospitals around the world are plagued by drug resistant bacteria giving rise to superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA, which result in 19,000 people in the United States dying every year.

Experts have cautioned that poor hospital practices spread dangerous bacteria while at the same time, doctors are told to cut back on using antibiotics to prevent the rise of resistant "superbugs." The longer people stay in hospital the greater is the chance of their catching the infection can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics.

As the current research was for a short period of 28 days longer term studies are needed to establish when the resistance to the drugs would develop in a long term usage which has been a long standing concern.