📃 Paper Title: Benefits and Harms of Treatment of Asymptomatic Bacteriuria: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis by the European Association of Urology Urological Infection Guidelines Panel
🧍 Author: Bela Köves
🕒 Year: 2017
📚 Journal: European Urology
🌎 Country: Hungary
ㅤContext to the study:
Can you tell me about a study that shows antibiotic treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) is not beneficial and in fact harmful in most patient groups?
ㅤ✅ Take-home message of study:
People with asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) are often unnecessarily treated with antibiotics risking adverse effects and antimicrobial resistance
This systematic review aimed to determine the benefits and harms of treating ABU in particular patient groups
For most people, treatment was not beneficial and may be harmful
Antibiotic treatment did appear to benefit women in pregnancy and those about to undergo urological surgery
ㅤ Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
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Study participants:
50 published trials recruiting 7088 patients
Subgroups;
diabetics
people undergoing urological surgery
pregnant women
women with rUTI
post-menopausal women
renal transplant recipients
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Key study outcomes:
Incidence of symptomatic UTI
Treatment of ABU increased the incidence of symptomatic UTI in women
Antibiotic treatment for pregnant females with ABU significantly reduced the number of symptomatic UTIs with placebo or no treatment (RR = 0.22, 95% CI 0.12-0.40)
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Study Limitations:
Quality of available studies was either low or very low
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