Although antibiotic treatment is effective for the cure of urinary tract infections, there are insufficient data to recommend any specific drug regimen for treatment of symptomatic urinary tract infections during pregnancy. All the antibiotics studied were shown to be very effective in decreasing the incidence of the different outcomes. Complications were very rare. All included trials had very small sample sizes to reliably detect important differences between treatments. Future studies should evaluate the most promising antibiotics, in terms of class, timing, dose, acceptability, maternal and neonatal outcomes and costs.
Treatment of lower urinary tract infection in pregnancy.
Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common complication of pregnancy. Approximately 20--40% of women with asymptomatic bacteriuria will develop pyelonephritis during pregnancy. All pregnant women, therefore, should have their urine cultured at their first visit to the clinic. In a clinical study comparing single-dose treatment with 3 g fosfomycin trometamol versus a 3-day course of 400 mg ceftibuten orally, the inclusion criteria were acute symptomatic lower UTI (acute cystitis), significant bacteriuria (> or =10(3) CFU/ml), pyuria and confirmed pregnancy. Excluded were patients with asymptomatic bacteriuria or acute pyelonephritis. Predisposing factors comprised a history of recurrent UTI, diabetes mellitus, analgesic nephropathy, hyperuricaemia or Fanconi's syndrome. Escherichia coli was the most frequently isolated pathogen in both groups. Therapeutic success (clinical cure and bacteriological eradication of uropathogens) was achieved in 95.2% of the patients treated with fosfomycin-trometamol versus 90.0% of those treated with ceftibuten (P, non-significant). The treatment of acute cystitis in pregnant women using a single-dose of fosfomycin trometamol was equally effective as the 3-day course of oral ceftibuten. Both regimens were well tolerated with only minor adverse effects. Long-term chemoprophylaxis should be suggested in patients with recurrent UTI or following acute pyelonephritis during pregnancy.