Summary
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia. 2012;34(11):488-493
DOI 10.1590/S0100-72032012001100002
PURPOSE: To identify the accuracy of urinalysis in the diagnosis of urinary tract infection in pregnant women at high risk. METHODS: a prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on 164 pregnant women admitted to the high-risk the ward of the Instituto de Medicina Integral Prof. Fernando Figueira (IMIP) during the period from January to June 2011. Patients who had been taking antibiotics in the last ten days were excluded. All patients were subjected to simple urine tests and urine culture at the beginning of their admission. The agreement between the results of the examinations was evaluated by Kappa indices (K), and accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values were also determined. RESULTS: When only the presence of pus cells in urinalysis was used as a diagnostic criterion suggesting bacteriuria, there was a poor agreement when compared to uroculture (K=0.16). Accuracy was 61%, sensitivity 62.5%, and specificity 60.6%. PPV was 27.78% and NPV was 87%. CONCLUSION: The presence of alteration of urinalysis does not necessarily indicate an ongoing urinary tract infection, with urine culture being necessary. However, when urinalysis data are normal, uroculture may be avoided.
Summary
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia. 2011;33(8):196-200
DOI 10.1590/S0100-72032011000800005
PURPOSE: To estimate the prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria among pregnant women attended at our university prenatal care clinic and to identify probable clinical predictors. METHODS: Across-sectional study was carried out from August 2008 to October 2009 at the Bahiana School of Medicine involving 260 pregnant women without symptoms of urinary tract infection. The following exclusion criteria were considered: presence of clinical signs such as fever, dysuria, vesical tenesmus, lumbar pain, history of active genital bleeding or loss of amniotic fluid, use of antimicrobial agents in the 30 days prior to sample collection, and refusal to participate in the project. The presence of single pathogen bacterial colonization ≥10(5) CFU/mL in the urine sample obtained from the middle jet was considered to be a dependent variable. The predictive factors evaluated were as follows: age, race, marital status, schooling, gestational age, hypertension, anemia, vaginal infection, sickle cell trait and previous history of urinary tract infection, urinary symptoms related to the lower urinary tract (frequency, urgency and nocturia) and data obtained from the urine summary (leukocyturia, increased bacterial flora, hematuria, proteinuria, and presence of nitrite). Statistical analysis was performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 13.0 and the level of significance was set at p<0.05. Prevalences were expressed as percentage, and the confidence interval considered was 95% (95%CI). RESULTS: The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria was 12.3% (95%CI=8.3-16.3). E. coli was the most frequent etiologic agent (59.4%). Logistic regression indicated that urgency to void (OR=5.99; 95%CI=2.20-16.31; p<0.001); leukocyturia (OR=2.85; 95%CI=1.04-7.83; p=0.042) and increased bacterial flora (OR=10.62; 95%CI=3.95-28.56; p<0.001) were independent predictors of asymptomatic bacteriuria. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria in the studied population was high. The prediction score created for the final logistic regression model has an accuracy of 91.9% for bacteriuria.
Summary
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia. 2008;30(2):93-100
DOI 10.1590/S0100-72032008000200008
Several factors cause urinary tract infection (UTI) to be a relevant complication of the gestational period, aggravating both the maternal and perinatal prognosis. For many years, pregnancy has been considered to be a factor predisposing to all forms of UTI. Today, it is known that pregnancy, as an isolated event, is not responsible for a higher incidence of UTI, but that the anatomical and physiological changes imposed on the urinary tract by pregnancy predispose women with asymptomatic bacteriuria (AB) to become pregnant women with symptomatic UTI. AB affects 2 to 10% of all pregnant women and approximately 30% of these will develop pyelonephritis if not properly treated. However, a difficult to understand resistance against the identification of AB during this period is observed among prenatalists. The diagnosis of UTI is microbiological and it is based on two urine cultures presenting more than 10(5) colonies/mL urine of the same germ. Treatment is facilitated by the fact that it is based on an antibiogram, with no scientific foundation for the notion that a pre-established therapeutic scheme is an adequate measure. For the treatment of pyelonephritis, it is not possible to wait for the result of culture and previous knowledge of the resistance profile of the antibacterial agents available for the treatment of pregnant women would be the best measure. Another important variable is the use of an intravenous bactericidal antibiotic during the acute phase, with the possibility of oral administration at home after clinical improvement of the patient. At our hospital, the drug that best satisfies all of these requirements is cefuroxime, administered for 10-14 days. Third-generation cephalosporins do not exist in the oral form, all of them involving the inconvenience of parenteral administration. In view of their side effects, aminoglycosides are considered to be inadequate for administration to pregnant women. The inconsistent insinuation of contraindication of monofluorinated quinolones, if there is an indication, norfloxacin is believed to be a good alternative to cefuroxime. In cases in which UTI prophylaxis is indicated, chemotherapeutic agents are preferred, among them nitrofurantoin, with care taken to avoid its use at the end of pregnancy due to the risk of kernicterus for the neonate.
Summary
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia. 2007;29(8):387-395
DOI 10.1590/S0100-72032007000800002
PURPOSE: to identify the main maternal risk factors involved in early-onset neonatal sepsis, evaluating the risk associations between bacterial vaginosis and isolated microorganisms found in the maternal urine culture and in the newborn blood culture in the delivery room. METHODS: randomized longitudinal cohort study involving 302 mothers and their newborns. All neonates were followed up for seven days in order to diagnose sepsis. RESULTS: the outcomes were the following: 16 (5.3%) early-onset neonatal sepsis cases (incidence of 53 cases per 1,000 live births). The average number of prenatal appointments with a doctor was 5.2 (SD=1.8). The number of women with prenatal follow-up was 269 (89.1%), but only 117 (43.4%) of them went to six or more medical appointments, 90 (29.8%) had premature rupture of membranes before delivery, but only 22 (7.3%) had it for more than 18 hours. A total of 123 women (40.7%) complained of vaginal discharge, but only 47 (15.6%) of them had bacterial vaginosis, 92 (30.4%) complained of urinary infection, but only 23 (7.6%) of them had bacteriuria, two (0.7%) had fever at home, 122 (40.4%) received intra-partum antibiotic prophylaxis, 40 (13.2%) had premature delivery and 37 (12.3%) had low-birth-weight babies. Gestational age was a significant risk factor (RR=92.9; IC95%:12.6-684.7), as well as the number of prenatal appointments (RR=10,8; IC95%:1,4-80,8), fever (RR=10,0; IC95%:2,3-43,5), low-birth-weight (RR=21,5; IC95%:7,3-63,2) and early neonatal death (RR=89,4; IC95%:11,16-720,6). A significant difference of 5% was found in the comparison of the averages of lower number of prenatal appointments, prematurity and lower birth weight. CONCLUSIONS: the major microorganism isolated in the newborns’ blood culture was the Streptococcus agalactiae. Prematurity, lack of prenatal follow up and low birth weight were the risk factors more associated with early neonatal sepsis.