This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Probiotic did not prevent diarrhea among patients taking antibiotics
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Treatment with Saccharomyces boulardii did not prevent the onset of antibiotic- or Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea in hospitalized patients receiving antibiotics in a recent study.
In a single-center, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial, 275 patients aged 79.2 years±9.8 years began a regimen less than 48 hours after starting antibiotic therapy of either a placebo (n=134) or probiotic S. boulardii (n=141). Participants continued to receive the treatment for 7 days following antibiotic withdrawal, with 12 weeks of follow-up.
Follow-up was completed by 204 patients aged 78.4 years±10 years, including 106 in the probiotic group and 98 in the placebo group. In the probiotic group, 15.1% (16 patients) developed antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD), compared with 13.3% (13 patients) in the placebo group (OR=1.16; 95% CI, 0.53-2.56). The condition developed a median of 26 days after enrollment, manifesting after 16 days in the placebo group and 36 days in the probiotic group (P=.17). The probiotic group reported significantly more smoking and alcohol consumption than the placebo group (P=.05), but the difference in AAD development across the two groups was not found to be statistically significant after adjusting for this difference (adjusted OR=1.00; 95% CI, 0.44-2.27).
Three probiotic patients and two placebo patients developed C. difficile-associated diarrhea. The difference in occurrence between the groups was not found to be statistically significant (OR=1.40; 95% CI, 0.23-8.55).
Across both groups, 71 participants died before follow-up was completed (36 in the placebo group; 35 in the probiotic group), and researchers observed no significant difference in the mortality rates between groups (P=.60).
“In this study, S. boulardii was shown to be unable to prevent the development of AAD, at least in a context with a low incidence of … cases,” researchers wrote.
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts