Open AccessAntibiotics for acute uncomplicated diverticulitis in hospitalized patients
Author(s) -
Cristóbal Araya-Quezada,
Lídice Torres-Bavestrello,
Gustavo Gómez-Barbieri,
Alejandro Zárate-Castillo
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
medwave
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.178
H-Index - 7
ISSN - 0717-6384
DOI - 10.5867/medwave.2021.02.8140
Subject(s) - medicine , diverticulitis , diverticular disease , systematic review , medline , randomized controlled trial , clinical research , clinical trial , intensive care medicine , general surgery , political science , law
Introduction Acute diverticulitis is one of the complications of diverticular disease. Nowadays, there is a paradigm shift regarding the use of antibiotics to manage acute uncomplicated diverticulitis in hospitalized patients, with controversial information about it. Methods A search was done in Epistemonikos, the most comprehensive health-related systematic review database, maintained by screening multiple information sources including MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. Data were extracted from the identified systematic reviews, data from primary studies were analyzed, which in this work considered only randomized clinical trials, a meta-analysis was done, and a summary table of results was created using GRADE methodology. Results and conclusions Eleven systematic reviews were identified that included seven primary studies in total, of which two were randomized control trials. We concluded that the use of antibiotics in acute uncomplicated diverticulitis could slightly increase complications and result in a minor or no difference in the risk of recurrence and need for urgent surgery. However, the certainty of the evidence is low. Regarding hospital stay and readmission, it was not possible to evaluate the effect due to a low certainty of evidence.