IMR Press / CEOG / Volume 50 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.31083/j.ceog5003050
Open Access Systematic Review
Efficacy of Probiotics in the Treatment of Adult Female Bacterial Vaginosis: A Meta-Analysis
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1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, 266000 Qingdao, Shandong, China
*Correspondence: chenaiping@qdu.edu.cn (Aiping Chen)
Clin. Exp. Obstet. Gynecol. 2023, 50(3), 50; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.ceog5003050
Submitted: 25 October 2022 | Revised: 22 December 2022 | Accepted: 26 December 2022 | Published: 10 March 2023
Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to assess the value of probiotics in the treatment of adult female bacterial vaginosis (BV). Methods: We looked for published randomized controlled trials in PubMed, Embase and The Cochrane Library from the inception dates of the database to January 3rd, 2022. We conducted the search focusing on the treatment of adult female BV with probiotics. Two independent researchers screened the literature, evaluated the trial quality and extracted the data according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The primary outcome was the ratio of patients with BV with recurrence according to Nugent score 7–10 for recurrence after treatment. After heterogeneity was assessed using Review Manager 5.4 software, meta-analysis and bias assessment were performed using Stata 17.0 software. Results: A total of 5 articles representing 425 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Compared with antibiotics alone or antibiotics combined with a placebo, probiotics or probiotics combined with antibiotics significantly reduced the rate of recurrence at around the 30th day (risk ratio (RR) 0.11; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.03–0.33). However, in the analysis of heterogeneity, we found that after 30 days, the therapeutic effect of probiotics decreased with the extension of follow-up time (RR 0.50; 95% CI 0.24–1.03), (RR 1.24; 95% CI 0.88–1.76). Conclusions: The short-term efficacy of probiotics in the treatment of BV in adult female patients may be satisfactory, but the long-term efficacy of probiotic therapy may be suboptimal and still requires validation by further clinical trials.

Keywords
meta-analysis
probiotic
therapeutics
vaginosis
bacterial
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