[Diagnostic tests for amniotic infection: review of the literature]

The diagnosis of intraamniotic infection (IAI) is not difficult when clinical manifestations are present, but there are patients with subclinical infections, in these cases the examination of the amniotic fluid is the most important diagnostic procedure. We made a critical review of the medical literature of diagnostic tests of IAI, according to the analysis criterion of the medical articles of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology of the McMaster University. The articles were identified looking for in the MEDLINE-CD ROOM and INDEX MEDICUS from 1991 to 1995. We identified 19 articles, none of them complied with all of the analysis criterion, none of the studies were blinded nor independently compared with a gold standard test and only five articles studied a full spectrum of patients. The articles with better methodologic design were those that studied the interleukin-6 role as diagnostic test for IAI; they showed a sensibility between 75 to 89% and a specificity of 97 to 100%; nevertheless it is still necessary to standardize the cut-off point of the interleukin-6 levels.