BACKGROUND: A septic abortion refers to any abortion (spontaneous or induced) complicated by upper genital tract infection including endometritis or parametritis. The mainstay of treatment of septic abortion is antibiotic therapy alone or in combination with evacuation of retained products of conception. Regimens including broad-spectrum antibiotics are routinely recommended for treatment. However, there is no consensus on the most effective antibiotics alone or in combination to treat septic abortion. This review aimed to bridge this gap in knowledge to inform policy and practice. OBJECTIVES: To review the effectiveness of various individual antibiotics or antibiotic regimens in the treatment of septic abortion. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, and POPLINE using the following keywords: 'Abortion', 'septic abortion', 'Antibiotics', 'Infected abortion', 'postabortion infection'. We also searched the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP) and ClinicalTrials.gov for ongoing trials on 19 April, 2016. SELECTION CRITERIA: We considered for inclusion randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCTs that compared antibiotic(s) to another antibiotic(s), irrespective of route of administration, dosage, and duration as well as studies comparing antibiotics alone with antibiotics in combination with other interventions such as dilation and curettage (D&C). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently extracted data from included trials. We resolved disagreements through consultation with a third author. One review author entered extracted data into Review Manager 5.3, and a second review author cross-checked the entry for accuracy. MAIN RESULTS: We included 3 small RCTs involving 233 women that were conducted over 3 decades ago.Clindamycin did not differ significantly from penicillin plus chloramphenicol in reducing fever in all women (mean difference (MD) -12.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) -25.12 to 0.52; women = 77; studies = 1). The evidence for this was of moderate quality. "Response to treatment was evaluated by the patient's 'fever index' expressed in degree-hour and defined as the total quantity of fever under the daily temperature curve with 99°F (37.2°C) as the baseline".There was no difference in duration of hospitalisation between clindamycin and penicillin plus chloramphenicol. The mean duration of hospital stay for women in each group was 5 days (MD 0.00, 95% CI -0.54 to 0.54; women = 77; studies = 1).One study evaluated the effect of penicillin plus chloramphenicol versus cephalothin plus kanamycin before and after D&C. Response to therapy was evaluated by "the time from start of antibiotics until fever lysis and time from D&C until patients become afebrile". Low-quality evidence suggested that the effect of penicillin plus chloramphenicol on fever did not differ from that of cephalothin plus kanamycin (MD -2.30, 95% CI -17.31 to 12.71; women = 56; studies = 1). There was no significant difference between penicillin plus chloramphenicol versus cephalothin plus kanamycin when D&C was performed during antibiotic therapy (MD -1.00, 95% CI -13.84 to 11.84; women = 56; studies = 1). The quality of evidence was low.A study with unclear risk of bias showed that the time for fever resolution (MD -5.03, 95% CI -5.77 to -4.29; women = 100; studies = 1) as well as time for resolution of leukocytosis (MD -4.88, 95% CI -5.98 to -3.78; women = 100; studies = 1) was significantly lower with tetracycline plus enzymes compared with intravenous penicillin G.Treatment failure and adverse events occurred infrequently, and the difference between groups was not statistically significant. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: We found no strong evidence that intravenous clindamycin alone was better than penicillin plus chloramphenicol for treating women with septic abortion. Similarly, available evidence did not suggest that penicillin plus chloramphenicol was better than cephalothin plus kanamycin for the treatment of women with septic abortion. Tetracyline enzyme antibiotic appeared to be more effective than intravenous penicillin G in reducing the time to fever defervescence, but this evidence was provided by only one study at low risk of bias.There is a need for high-quality RCTs providing reliable evidence for treatments of septic abortion with antibiotics that are currently in use. The three included studies were carried out over 30 years ago. There is also a need to include institutions in low-resource settings, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia, with a high burden of abortion and health systems challenges.
BACKGROUND: A septic abortion refers to any abortion (spontaneous or induced) complicated by upper genital tract infection including endometritis or parametritis. The mainstay of treatment of septic abortion is antibiotic therapy alone or in combination with evacuation of retained products of conception. Regimens including broad-spectrum antibiotics are routinely recommended for treatment. However, there is no consensus on the most effective antibiotics alone or in combination to treat septic abortion. This review aimed to bridge this gap in knowledge to inform policy and practice. OBJECTIVES: To review the effectiveness of various individual antibiotics or antibiotic regimens in the treatment of septic abortion. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, and POPLINE using the following keywords: 'Abortion', 'septic abortion', 'Antibiotics', 'Infected abortion', 'postabortion infection'. We also searched the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP) and ClinicalTrials.gov for ongoing trials on 19 April, 2016. SELECTION CRITERIA: We considered for inclusion randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCTs that compared antibiotic(s) to another antibiotic(s), irrespective of route of administration, dosage, and duration as well as studies comparing antibiotics alone with antibiotics in combination with other interventions such as dilation and curettage (D&C). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently extracted data from included trials. We resolved disagreements through consultation with a third author. One review author entered extracted data into Review Manager 5.3, and a second review author cross-checked the entry for accuracy. MAIN RESULTS: We included 3 small RCTs involving 233 women that were conducted over 3 decades ago.Clindamycin did not differ significantly from penicillin plus chloramphenicol in reducing fever in all women (mean difference (MD) -12.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) -25.12 to 0.52; women = 77; studies = 1). The evidence for this was of moderate quality. "Response to treatment was evaluated by the patient's 'fever index' expressed in degree-hour and defined as the total quantity of fever under the daily temperature curve with 99°F (37.2°C) as the baseline".There was no difference in duration of hospitalisation between clindamycin and penicillin plus chloramphenicol. The mean duration of hospital stay for women in each group was 5 days (MD 0.00, 95% CI -0.54 to 0.54; women = 77; studies = 1).One study evaluated the effect of penicillin plus chloramphenicol versus cephalothin plus kanamycin before and after D&C. Response to therapy was evaluated by "the time from start of antibiotics until fever lysis and time from D&C until patients become afebrile". Low-quality evidence suggested that the effect of penicillin plus chloramphenicol on fever did not differ from that of cephalothin plus kanamycin (MD -2.30, 95% CI -17.31 to 12.71; women = 56; studies = 1). There was no significant difference between penicillin plus chloramphenicol versus cephalothin plus kanamycin when D&C was performed during antibiotic therapy (MD -1.00, 95% CI -13.84 to 11.84; women = 56; studies = 1). The quality of evidence was low.A study with unclear risk of bias showed that the time for fever resolution (MD -5.03, 95% CI -5.77 to -4.29; women = 100; studies = 1) as well as time for resolution of leukocytosis (MD -4.88, 95% CI -5.98 to -3.78; women = 100; studies = 1) was significantly lower with tetracycline plus enzymes compared with intravenous penicillin G.Treatment failure and adverse events occurred infrequently, and the difference between groups was not statistically significant. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: We found no strong evidence that intravenous clindamycin alone was better than penicillin plus chloramphenicol for treating women with septic abortion. Similarly, available evidence did not suggest that penicillin plus chloramphenicol was better than cephalothin plus kanamycin for the treatment of women with septic abortion. Tetracyline enzyme antibiotic appeared to be more effective than intravenous penicillin G in reducing the time to fever defervescence, but this evidence was provided by only one study at low risk of bias.There is a need for high-quality RCTs providing reliable evidence for treatments of septic abortion with antibiotics that are currently in use. The three included studies were carried out over 30 years ago. There is also a need to include institutions in low-resource settings, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia, with a high burden of abortion and health systems challenges.
Authors: Marc Fischer; Julu Bhatnagar; Jeannette Guarner; Sarah Reagan; Jill K Hacker; Sharon H Van Meter; Vadims Poukens; David B Whiteman; Anthony Iton; Michele Cheung; David E Dassey; Wun-Ju Shieh; Sherif R Zaki Journal: N Engl J Med Date: 2005-12-01 Impact factor: 91.245
Authors: Nicholas J Kassebaum; Amelia Bertozzi-Villa; Megan S Coggeshall; Katya A Shackelford; Caitlyn Steiner; Kyle R Heuton; Diego Gonzalez-Medina; Ryan Barber; Chantal Huynh; Daniel Dicker; Tara Templin; Timothy M Wolock; Ayse Abbasoglu Ozgoren; Foad Abd-Allah; Semaw Ferede Abera; Ibrahim Abubakar; Tom Achoki; Ademola Adelekan; Zanfina Ademi; Arsène Kouablan Adou; José C Adsuar; Emilie E Agardh; Dickens Akena; Deena Alasfoor; Zewdie Aderaw Alemu; Rafael Alfonso-Cristancho; Samia Alhabib; Raghib Ali; Mazin J Al Kahbouri; François Alla; Peter J Allen; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ubai Alsharif; Elena Alvarez; Nelson Alvis-Guzmán; Adansi A Amankwaa; Azmeraw T Amare; Hassan Amini; Walid Ammar; Carl A T Antonio; Palwasha Anwari; Johan Arnlöv; Valentina S Arsic Arsenijevic; Ali Artaman; Majed Masoud Asad; Rana J Asghar; Reza Assadi; Lydia S Atkins; Alaa Badawi; Kalpana Balakrishnan; Arindam Basu; Sanjay Basu; Justin Beardsley; Neeraj Bedi; Tolesa Bekele; Michelle L Bell; Eduardo Bernabe; Tariku J Beyene; Zulfiqar Bhutta; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Jed D Blore; Berrak Bora Basara; Dipan Bose; Nicholas Breitborde; Rosario Cárdenas; Carlos A Castañeda-Orjuela; Ruben Estanislao Castro; Ferrán Catalá-López; Alanur Cavlin; Jung-Chen Chang; Xuan Che; Costas A Christophi; Sumeet S Chugh; Massimo Cirillo; Samantha M Colquhoun; Leslie Trumbull Cooper; Cyrus Cooper; Iuri da Costa Leite; Lalit Dandona; Rakhi Dandona; Adrian Davis; Anand Dayama; Louisa Degenhardt; Diego De Leo; Borja del Pozo-Cruz; Kebede Deribe; Muluken Dessalegn; Gabrielle A deVeber; Samath D Dharmaratne; Uğur Dilmen; Eric L Ding; Rob E Dorrington; Tim R Driscoll; Sergei Petrovich Ermakov; Alireza Esteghamati; Emerito Jose A Faraon; Farshad Farzadfar; Manuela Mendonca Felicio; Seyed-Mohammad Fereshtehnejad; Graça Maria Ferreira de Lima; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Elisabeth B França; Lynne Gaffikin; Ketevan Gambashidze; Fortuné Gbètoho Gankpé; Ana C Garcia; Johanna M Geleijnse; Katherine B Gibney; Maurice Giroud; Elizabeth L Glaser; Ketevan Goginashvili; Philimon Gona; Dinorah González-Castell; Atsushi Goto; Hebe N Gouda; Harish Chander Gugnani; Rahul Gupta; Rajeev Gupta; Nima Hafezi-Nejad; Randah Ribhi Hamadeh; Mouhanad Hammami; Graeme J Hankey; Hilda L Harb; Rasmus Havmoeller; Simon I Hay; Ileana B Heredia Pi; Hans W Hoek; H Dean Hosgood; Damian G Hoy; Abdullatif Husseini; Bulat T Idrisov; Kaire Innos; Manami Inoue; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Eiman Jahangir; Sun Ha Jee; Paul N Jensen; Vivekanand Jha; Guohong Jiang; Jost B Jonas; Knud Juel; Edmond Kato Kabagambe; Haidong Kan; Nadim E Karam; André Karch; Corine Kakizi Karema; Anil Kaul; Norito Kawakami; Konstantin Kazanjan; Dhruv S Kazi; Andrew H Kemp; Andre Pascal Kengne; Maia Kereselidze; Yousef Saleh Khader; Shams Eldin Ali Hassan Khalifa; Ejaz Ahmed Khan; Young-Ho Khang; Luke Knibbs; Yoshihiro Kokubo; Soewarta Kosen; Barthelemy Kuate Defo; Chanda Kulkarni; Veena S Kulkarni; G Anil Kumar; Kaushalendra Kumar; Ravi B Kumar; Gene Kwan; Taavi Lai; Ratilal Lalloo; Hilton Lam; Van C Lansingh; Anders Larsson; Jong-Tae Lee; James Leigh; Mall Leinsalu; Ricky Leung; Xiaohong Li; Yichong Li; Yongmei Li; Juan Liang; Xiaofeng Liang; Stephen S Lim; Hsien-Ho Lin; Steven E Lipshultz; Shiwei Liu; Yang Liu; Belinda K Lloyd; Stephanie J London; Paulo A Lotufo; Jixiang Ma; Stefan Ma; Vasco Manuel Pedro Machado; Nana Kwaku Mainoo; Marek Majdan; Christopher Chabila Mapoma; Wagner Marcenes; Melvin Barrientos Marzan; Amanda J Mason-Jones; Man Mohan Mehndiratta; Fabiola Mejia-Rodriguez; Ziad A Memish; Walter Mendoza; Ted R Miller; Edward J Mills; Ali H Mokdad; Glen Liddell Mola; Lorenzo Monasta; Jonathan de la Cruz Monis; Julio Cesar Montañez Hernandez; Ami R Moore; Maziar Moradi-Lakeh; Rintaro Mori; Ulrich O Mueller; Mitsuru Mukaigawara; Aliya Naheed; Kovin S Naidoo; Devina Nand; Vinay Nangia; Denis Nash; Chakib Nejjari; Robert G Nelson; Sudan Prasad Neupane; Charles R Newton; Marie Ng; Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen; Muhammad Imran Nisar; Sandra Nolte; Ole F Norheim; Luke Nyakarahuka; In-Hwan Oh; Takayoshi Ohkubo; Bolajoko O Olusanya; Saad B Omer; John Nelson Opio; Orish Ebere Orisakwe; Jeyaraj D Pandian; Christina Papachristou; Jae-Hyun Park; Angel J Paternina Caicedo; Scott B Patten; Vinod K Paul; Boris Igor Pavlin; Neil Pearce; David M Pereira; Konrad Pesudovs; Max Petzold; Dan Poenaru; Guilherme V Polanczyk; Suzanne Polinder; Dan Pope; Farshad Pourmalek; Dima Qato; D Alex Quistberg; Anwar Rafay; Kazem Rahimi; Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar; Sajjad ur Rahman; Murugesan Raju; Saleem M Rana; Amany Refaat; Luca Ronfani; Nobhojit Roy; Tania Georgina Sánchez Pimienta; Mohammad Ali Sahraian; Joshua A Salomon; Uchechukwu Sampson; Itamar S Santos; Monika Sawhney; Felix Sayinzoga; Ione J C Schneider; Austin Schumacher; David C Schwebel; Soraya Seedat; Sadaf G Sepanlou; Edson E Servan-Mori; Marina Shakh-Nazarova; Sara Sheikhbahaei; Kenji Shibuya; Hwashin Hyun Shin; Ivy Shiue; Inga Dora Sigfusdottir; Donald H Silberberg; Andrea P Silva; Jasvinder A Singh; Vegard Skirbekk; Karen Sliwa; Sergey S Soshnikov; Luciano A Sposato; Chandrashekhar T Sreeramareddy; Konstantinos Stroumpoulis; Lela Sturua; Bryan L Sykes; Karen M Tabb; Roberto Tchio Talongwa; Feng Tan; Carolina Maria Teixeira; Eric Yeboah Tenkorang; Abdullah Sulieman Terkawi; Andrew L Thorne-Lyman; David L Tirschwell; Jeffrey A Towbin; Bach X Tran; Miltiadis Tsilimbaris; Uche S Uchendu; Kingsley N Ukwaja; Eduardo A Undurraga; Selen Begüm Uzun; Andrew J Vallely; Coen H van Gool; Tommi J Vasankari; Monica S Vavilala; N Venketasubramanian; Salvador Villalpando; Francesco S Violante; Vasiliy Victorovich Vlassov; Theo Vos; Stephen Waller; Haidong Wang; Linhong Wang; XiaoRong Wang; Yanping Wang; Scott Weichenthal; Elisabete Weiderpass; Robert G Weintraub; Ronny Westerman; James D Wilkinson; Solomon Meseret Woldeyohannes; John Q Wong; Muluemebet Abera Wordofa; Gelin Xu; Yang C Yang; Yuichiro Yano; Gokalp Kadri Yentur; Paul Yip; Naohiro Yonemoto; Seok-Jun Yoon; Mustafa Z Younis; Chuanhua Yu; Kim Yun Jin; Maysaa El Sayed Zaki; Yong Zhao; Yingfeng Zheng; Maigeng Zhou; Jun Zhu; Xiao Nong Zou; Alan D Lopez; Mohsen Naghavi; Christopher J L Murray; Rafael Lozano Journal: Lancet Date: 2014-05-02 Impact factor: 79.321