Still No Substantial Evidence to Use Prophylactic Antibiotic at Operative Vaginal Delivery: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Table 2

Obstetric procedures and traumatic and infectious complications (redeveloped from the original study by Knight et al. with some additional variables and analysis).

Procedures and complications	Antibiotic trial group (n = 1715), no (%)	Placebo group (n = 1705), no (%)	value
Episiotomy (total)	1519 (89.0)	1525 (89.0)	0.2
Perineal tear (total)	493 (29.0)	560 (33.0)	0.004
Isolated perineal tear	126 (7.0)	140 (8.0)	0.2
Perineal tear and episiotomy	367 (21.0)	420 (25.0)	0.01
Sutured perineal wound	1645 (99.0)	1665 (100.0)	NA
Confirmed or suspected maternal infection	180 (11.0)	306 (18.0)^‡	<0.0001
Perineal wound infection	111 (7.0)	222 (13.0)	<0.0001
Maternal infection other than perineal wound infection	69 (4.0)	84 (5.0%)	0.1
Wound breakdown^†	142 (11.0)	272 (21.0)	<0.0001
Maternal infection other than wound breakdown	38 (2.0)	34 (2.0)	0.2
Endometritis	15 (1.0)	23 (1.0)	0.2
Ever too painful perineum^†	136 (11.0)	198 (15.0)^‡	<0.00025

^†The denominator for antibiotic trial and placebo groups is 1296 and 1297, respectively. ^‡The percentage in the original study for two variables in the placebo group (“confirmed or suspected maternal infection” and “ever too painful perineum”) was reported as 19% and 17%, respectively. We thought that as a typographic error and made corrections. The “missing” cases (54 for antibiotic trial group and 33 for the placebo group) were included in numerator in the original study report to determine the proportion, giving 99% and 100%, respectively.