Trends in anti-infective drugs use in pregnancy.

Fabiano Santos, Odile Sheehy, Sylvie Perreault, Ema Ferreira, Anick Bérard

Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Journal of population therapeutics and clinical pharmacology = Journal de la thérapeutique des populations et de la pharamcologie clinique 2012

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Development of knowledge in understanding the use of anti-infective drugs during pregnancy has been limited by difficulties in testing medications in pregnant women and lack of evidence-based data. Overuse of broad spectra agents is associated with development and spread of bacterial resistance, a problem that is faced as a significant threat to the public health. To describe trends in use of general and broad spectrum anti-infective drugs during pregnancy. We used the Quebec Pregnancy Registry to analyse trends for use of oral anti-infectives dispensed during pregnancy for the five-year period comprised between January 1998 and December 2002. Trends in use were assessed for classes of anti-infectives and for broad-spectrum drugs. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the characteristics of the study population. Annual trends for the use of anti-infective drugs were analyzed using the Cochran-Armitage test. The use of anti-infective drugs and broad spectrum agents during pregnancy decreased from 1998 to 2002 (p ≤ 0.05 for trends). The classes that showed increasing trend for use were: macrolides, quinolones, tetracyclines, urinary anti-infective drugs and antimycotics. Use of penicillins and sulfonamides decreased. Azithromycin showed a remarkable increase in its use: 0.04% of all anti-infective prescriptions in 1998, compared to 10.16% in 2002. Decrease in the use of broad-spectrum drugs may have been caused by a positive impact of data issued from evidence in everyday life clinical practice. More data is needed to evaluate the impact of the knowledge transfer from evidence-based studies on prescription's trends during pregnancy.

Citation

Fabiano Santos, Odile Sheehy, Sylvie Perreault, Ema Ferreira, Anick Bérard. Trends in anti-infective drugs use in pregnancy. Journal of population therapeutics and clinical pharmacology = Journal de la thérapeutique des populations et de la pharamcologie clinique. 2012;19(3):e460-5