Antibiotics for treating osteomyelitis in people with sickle cell disease

Osteomyelitis (both acute and chronic) is one of the most common infectious complications in people with sickle cell disease. There is no standardized approach to antibiotic therapy and treatment is likely to vary from country to country. Thus, there is a need to identify the efficacy and safety of different antibiotic treatment approaches for people with sickle cell disease suffering from osteomyelitis.

To determine whether an empirical antibiotic treatment approach (monotherapy or combination therapy) is effective and safe as compared to pathogen-directed antibiotic treatment and whether this effectiveness and safety is dependent on different treatment regimens, age or setting.

We searched The Group's Haemoglobinopathies Trials Register, which comprises references identified from comprehensive electronic database searches and handsearching of relevant journals and abstract books of conference proceedings. We also searched the LILACS database (1982 to 14 January 2009) and www.clinicaltrials.gov (June 2008).Date of most recent search of the Haemoglobinopathies Trials Register: 14 November 2008.

We searched for published or unpublished randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials.

Each author intended to independently extract data and assess trial quality by standard Cochrane Collaboration methodologies, but no eligible randomised controlled trials were identified.

We were unable to find any randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials on antibiotic treatment approaches for osteomyelitis in people with sickle cell disease.

We were unable to identify any relevant trials on the efficacy and safety of the antibiotic treatment approaches for people with sickle cell disease suffering from osteomyelitis. Randomised controlled trials are needed to establish the optimum antibiotic treatment for this condition.