The Battle Against Recurrent UTIs in Welsh Women

TOPLINE:
The prevalence of recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTIs) and the use of antibiotics for prevention are substantial among women in Wales, particularly among those over the age of 57 years. A high level of resistance to two recommended antibiotics was observed, suggesting that more frequent urine cultures could better guide antibiotic selection for treatment and prophylaxis.
METHODOLOGY:
The researchers conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study using a large databank of patients in Wales to describe the characteristics and urine profiles of women with rUTIs between 2010 and 2022.
They created two cohorts: One with 92,213 women (median age, 60 years) who experienced rUTIs, defined as two or more acute episodes within 6 months or three or more acute episodes within 12 months.
Another cohort comprised of 26,862 women (median age, 71 years) were prescribed prophylactic antibiotics, which was defined as receiving three or more consecutive prescriptions of the same UTI-specific antibiotic (trimethoprim, nitrofurantoin, or cefalexin), with intervals of 21-56 days between prescriptions.
Urine culture results in the 12 months before a rUTI diagnosis and 18 months before prophylactic antibiotic initiation and all urine culture results within 7 days of an acute UTI were analyzed to assess antibiotic resistance patterns.
TAKEAWAY:
Overall, 6% of women had rUTIs, 1.7% of which were prescribed prophylactic antibiotics with proportions increasing sharply after age 57.
Nearly half of the women (49%) who were prescribed a prophylactic antibiotic qualified as having rUTIs in the 18 months before initiation.
This study showed that 80.8% of women with rUTIs had a urine culture result documented in the 12 months preceding the diagnosis.
More than half (64%) of the women taking prophylactic antibiotics had a urine culture result documented before starting treatment, and 18% of those prescribed trimethoprim had resistance to the antibiotic.
IN PRACTICE:
“More frequent urine cultures in the workup of rUTI diagnosis and prophylactic antibiotic initiation could better inform antibiotic choice,” the authors wrote.
SOURCE:
The study was led by Leigh Sanyaolu, BSc (Hons), MRCS, MRCGP, PGDip, a general practitioner from the Division of Population Medicine and PRIME Centre Wales at Cardiff University in Cardiff, England, and was published online in the British Journal of General Practice.
LIMITATIONS:
The study’s reliance on electronic health records may have led to coding errors and missing data. The diagnosis of UTIs may have been difficult in older women with increased frailty as they can have fewer specific symptoms and asymptomatic bacteriuria, which can be misdiagnosed as a UTI.
DICLOSURES:
This work was supported by Health and Care Research Wales. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
 
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