Efficiency of different antibiotics used in patients who have asymptomatic bacteriuria and urinary tract infection in their pregnancy

SUMMARY Efficiency of Different Antibiotics Used in Patients Who Have Asymptomatic Bacteriuria and Urinary Tract Infection in Their Pregnancy Objective: Three different antibiotics that could be used in pregnancies such as ampicillin, cefuroxime axetil and fosfomycin in cases of urinary tract infections and asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy were compared in terms of efficacy, tolerability and side effect. Materials and Methods: A total of 150 pregnant women with urinary tract infection or asymptomatic bacteriuria who were admitted to KTU, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, pregnancy outpatient clinic between December 2005 and October 2016 were enrolled. The cases were questioned for age, number of pregnancies, gestational week, previous history of urinary tract infections, systemic disease, previous urogynecologic surgery, smoking and alcohol use. Patients with significant leucocytosis, side pain, high fever and suspected upper urinary tract infections were excluded from the study as well as urinary tract stone disease, recurrent urinary tract infections, diabetes mellitus, analgesic nephropathy, Fanconi anemia, hyperuricemia and smokers. Acquired urine specimens were simultaneously processed in the microbiology and biochemistry laboratory. Ampicillin (n = 50), cefuroxime axetil (n = 50) and phosfomycin (n = 50) were used with the double blind system according to the antibiotic susceptibility pattern. Statistical significance was considered when the p value was less than 0.05. Results: 56.7% of the 150 patients had urinary tract infections and 43.3% were asymptomatic bacteriuria. Escherichia coli were found to be the most commonly occurring microorganism in urine culture. When the efficacy of treatment with phosfomycin, ampicillin and cefuroxime axetil was evaluated, all three antibiotics were successful in treatment and no statistically significant difference was found between them. Side effects were reported in three cases using phosphomycin, six cases using ampicillin and four cases using cefuroxime axetil, and there was no statistically significant difference between the groups. Conclusion: Cases with urinary infection should be treated with appropriate antibiotics. In the present study, the use of ampicillin, cefuroxime axetil and phosphomycin in pregnancies in the presence of asymptomatic bacteriuria and / or urinary tract infections did not make a difference in efficacy. However, when the number of sample groups is large, the outcome of the study could be changed, therefore there is a need for new studies involving more pregnant women. Keywords: asymptomatic bacteriuria, pregnancy, urinary tract infection.