Dietary supplementation with myo-inositol in women during pregnancy for treating gestational diabetes
Authors' conclusions: There are insufficient data to evaluate the effect of myo-inositol for the treatment of gestational diabetes, with no data to examine the majority of outcomes in this review. There do not appear to be any benefits for the infant associated with exposure to myo-inositol such as reduced risk of being born large-for-gestational age. Although the risk of neonatal hypoglycaemia is reduced for the myo-inositol group, there is evidence of imprecision. Evidence from two studies suggested that myo-inositol was associated with a reduced change in maternal BMI and fasting blood sugar concentration compared with placebo. There is a lack of reporting of the clinically meaningful outcomes pre-specified for this review.
Local oestrogen for vaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women
Authors' conclusions: There was no evidence of a difference in efficacy between the various intravaginal oestrogenic preparations when compared with each other. However, there was low-quality evidence that intra-vaginal oestrogenic preparations improve the symptoms of vaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women when compared to placebo. There was low-quality evidence that oestrogen cream may be associated with an increase in endometrial thickness compared to oestrogen ring; this may have been due to the higher doses of cream used. However there was no evidence of a difference in the overall body of evidence in adverse events between the various oestrogenic preparations compared with each other or with placebo.
Volume expanders for the prevention of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome
Authors' conclusions: Evidence suggests that the plasma expanders assessed in this review (human albumin, HES and mannitol) reduce rates of moderate and severe OHSS in women at high risk. Adverse events appear to be uncommon, but were too poorly reported to reach any firm conclusions, and there were no data on live birth. However, there was evidence that human albumin reduces pregnancy rates. While there was no evidence that HES, or mannitol had any influence on pregnancy rates, the evidence of effectiveness was based on very few trials which need to be confirmed in additional, larger randomised controlled trials (RCTs) before they should be considered for routine use in clinical practice.
Amnioinfusion for chorioamnionitis
Authors' conclusions: There is insufficient evidence to fully evaluate the effectiveness of using transcervical amnioinfusion for chorioamnionitis and to assess the safety of this intervention or women’s satisfaction. We did not identify any trials that used transabdominal amnioinfusion. The evidence in this review can neither support nor refute the use of transcervical amnioinfusion outside of clinical trials. We included one small study that reported on... read more
Techniques for the interruption of tubal patency for female sterilisation.
Authors' conclusions: Tubal sterilisation by partial salpingectomy, electrocoagulation, or using clips or rings, is a safe and effective method of contraception. Failure rates at 12 months post-sterilisation and major morbidity are rare outcomes with any of these techniques. Minor complications and technical failures appear to be more common with rings than clips. Electrocoagulation may be associated with less postoperative pain than the modified Pomeroy or tubal ring methods. Further research should include RCTs (for effectiveness) and controlled observational studies (for adverse effects) on sterilisation by minimally-invasive methods, i.e. tubal inserts and quinacrine.
