Stefano Salvatore, Umberto Leone Roberti Maggiore, Marta Parma, Lavinia Quaranta, Massimo Candiani
San Rafaelle Hospital, Milan, Italy
Topic UTIs
Onjective to evaluate in a prospective way the efficacy of Betberry in a group of women compared wit a similar one treated only with
antibiotics when needed.
Methods: We prospectively included postmenopausal women with a history of recurrent UTIs (defined as at least 3 episodes in 12 months).
We escluded women with well established neurological disorder (e.g. Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer disease), pelvic organ prolapse
staged ≥ II (ICS classification), previous history of urogenital surgery such as hysterectomy less than 6 months prior to inclusion, Painful bladder syndrome
,clinically significant bladder outlet obstruction and/or patients with a post void residual volume (PVR) ultrasound result, greater than 100 ml ,with
an indwelling catheter and patients practising intermittent self-catheterisation, with diabetes mellitus, with unexplained haematuria. Patients were evaluated
on entry and then at 6 and 12 months or when requested by the patients themselves. Women ddivided into two groups depending on their preference: Group
1: Betberry one envelope once a day for 15 days/month for 6 motnhs and Group 2: antibiotics when needed. The two groups were finally evaluated fo number
of UTIs occurred and cost of antibiotic therapy. The costs was calculated as the mean price of all the antibiotics used in this study and decided arbitrarily
either by the patients themselves or by their GPs.
Results Thirty eight women (19 per group) were included in the study. The mean age for group 1 was 63.9 years (±6.0 SD) and for Group
2 64.8 years (±5.6 SD); the two groups were therefore not significantly different (p 0.539). The mean number of infection episodes/year in Group 1 was
3.8 and in Group 2 was 4.3. At 12 month follow-up the mean number of infection episodes was 2.0 in Group 1 and 3.4 for group 2 (p = 0.001). At 12 month
follow up the mean antibiotic cost for UTI episode was 9.37 euros, with an overall cost for antibiotic treatment of 356,06 euros in group 1 and 609,05
euros in Group 2
Conclusions Betberry seems to be effective in significantly reduce recurrent UTIs in a group of postmenopausal women.