| Title | The role of Lactobacillus casei rhamnosus Lcr35 in restoring the normal vaginal flora after antibiotic treatment of bacterial vaginosis. | | Author(s) | Petricevic L, Witt A | | Institution | Department of Obstetrics and Fetomaternal Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. | | Source | BJOG 2008 Oct; 115(11):1369-74. | | Abstract | OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of additional topical Lactobacillus casei rhamnosus (Lcr35) subsequent to antibiotic treatment of bacterial vaginosis (BV) to restore the normal vaginal flora.
STUDY DESIGN: Single-centre, randomised, observerblinded study.
SETTING: Population-based study in Vienna over 1 year. SAMPLE: 190 women were enrolled in the study.
METHODS: Women with Nugent scores between 7 and 10 on initial vaginal swab were randomised to the one of two groups. All women were treated with standard antibiotic therapy for 7 days. Only women in the intervention group received vaginal capsules containing 10(9) colony-forming units of live Lcr35 for 7 days after antibiotic treatment. Final vaginal swabs for Nugent scoring were taken 4 weeks after the last administration of the study medication.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary efficacy variable was a change in the Nugent score between the baseline and the end of the study of at least 5 grades in each individual woman.
RESULTS: Sixty-nine of the 83 women (83%) in the intervention group and 31 of the 88 women (35%) in the control group showed a reduction of the Nugent score by at least 5 grades. The difference in the number of women with improvement was highly significant (P < 0.001). The median difference in Nugent scores between initial and final swabs was 6.61 in the intervention group and 4.13 in the control group (P < 0.001).
Conclusion: Our data show that the restoration of the vaginal flora after antibiotic treatment of BV can be significantly enhanced by exogenously applied lactobacilli. | | Language | eng | | Pub Type(s) | Journal Article
| | PubMed ID | 18823487 |
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