Bacitracin

Does Bacitracin work?

Partly: one large trial of 922 patients found no clear gain over petroleum jelly.

Bacitracin's approval predates modern trial requirements. The best modern evidence for its everyday use, preventing infection in minor wounds, is a randomized double-blind trial of 922 dermatologic surgery patients in which bacitracin was no better than plain petrolatum on overall infection rate. One large trial with a null primary result for the popular use is grade B. ⁴

The key modern trial appeared in JAMA in 1996. At Walter Reed, researchers randomized 922 patients with 1,249 wounds after skin surgery. Patients got white petrolatum or bacitracin ointment, double-blind, for four weeks. Infection after surgery struck 2.0% of the petrolatum group and 0.9% of the bacitracin group. That gap was not statistically significant. Wound healing did not differ at days 1, 7 or 28. ⁴

Two smaller findings pointed in opposite directions. All eight Staphylococcus aureus infections were in the petrolatum group, and none were in the bacitracin group. That gap was statistically significant. But four patients (0.9%) in the bacitracin group developed allergic contact dermatitis. None in the petrolatum group did. The authors concluded that petrolatum worked equally well and carried less allergy risk. ⁴

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Reference information only, not medical advice. Drawn from the Bacitracin article, fact-checked against the cited sources. No dosing anywhere on this site.