DURATION UTI
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Impact of duration of antibiotic therapy on effectiveness, safety and selection of antibiotic resistance in adult women with urinary tract infections (UTI): a randomised controlled trial.
IRAS ID
1006965
Contact name
Gail Hayward
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN18390724
Research summary
This research aims to find the shortest antibiotic treatment duration needed to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) effectively. We will look at the impact of each antibiotic and treatment duration on antibiotic resistance.
UTIs, both bladder and kidney infections, are among the most common infections treated with antibiotics. Over four million prescriptions for UTIs are issued to women in the UK every year. However, there is little evidence to help clinicians decide how many days of antibiotic treatment are necessary. We need to use the shortest treatment duration which ensures that the infection is properly treated. This could avoid bacteria becoming antibiotic resistant, ensuring antibiotics remain effective.
We will recruit 2248 adult women with UTI symptoms for whom the doctor judges that antibiotics are needed for a suspected bladder or kidney infection. We will include women with symptoms of bladder and kidney infections. The clinician will randomise women with bladder infection to receive one of two commonly used antibiotics for this condition. Women with kidney infection will be offered one of a family of antibiotics which will work in similar ways depending on the local prescribing policy. Because we don’t know for how many days women should take a particular antibiotic to get the best results from treatment, we will randomise women to take their antibiotic treatment for one of five or six different treatment durations in days. Our main focus will be to compare how many women have got fully better 6 weeks after starting antibiotics. We will also measure how long each woman experiences UTI symptoms, whether the bacteria in their urine are killed by the antibiotic, whether they develop further UTIs, and the value for money of each treatment duration.
We will invite women who join the main study to take part in an optional rectal swab sub-study about the effect of antibiotic duration on antibiotic resistance in bacteria in their gut.REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/NE/0087
Date of REC Opinion
30 Aug 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion