Intraoperative peritoneal lavage plays an important role in a treatment of peritonitis. Sterile water, warm saline, and povidone-iodine are most commonly used for the purpose of peritoneal lavage. But now, the addition of antibiotics in these fluids is supposed to give better results. Among various antibiotics, metronidazole has proved to be most beneficial in treating the peritonitis.

Materials and Methods: 271 patients who got admitted through SOPD, casualty or transferred from other departments and underwent emergency laparotomy during the period of study were included in the study irrespective of the age and sex. Patients were randomly distributed into two groups.

One received intraoperative peritoneal lavage with 5 litres of normal saline and others received lavage with 5 litres of normal saline along with 100ml of metronidazole.

Post operative wound infections were recorded. Results of both the groups were analyzed statistically with the help of chi square test. P value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results:  The mean age of the patients in our study was 36.1 and standard deviation of 15

Out of 271 patients, 219 were males 52 were females. Most common etiology of peritonitis was Peptic perforation (35.4%) followed by ileal perforation (23.6%)

Wound s\infections were statistically more with patients who received only normal saline for lavage as compared to patients with normal saline and topical metronidazole.

Conclusion: Addition of peritoneal lavage with high concentrations of appropriate antibiotics in saline combined with the basic principles of good surgery and the systemic administration of antibiotics, offers the patient a much better chance to recover and has few if any ill effects.

Keywords: Peritonitis, Lavage, Metronidazole, Wound infection.