Background and objective: Previously reported prevalence of urinary tract infections (UTIs) in infants with jaundice range from <1% to 25%. However, UTI criteria are variable and, as demonstrated in a meta-analysis on UTI prevalence in bronchiolitis, disease prevalence is greatly impacted by disease definition. The objective of this study was to conduct a systemic review and meta-analysis examining the impact of including positive urinalysis (UA) results as a diagnostic criterion on the estimated UTI prevalence in young infants with jaundice.
Methods: The data sources used were Medline (1946-2020) and Ovid Embase (1976-2020) through January 2020 and bibliographies of retrieved articles. We selected studies reporting UTI prevalence in young infants with jaundice. Data were extracted in accordance with meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology guidelines. Random-effects models produced a weighted pooled event rate with 95% confidence intervals (CI).
Results: We screened 526 unique articles by abstract and reviewed 53 full-text articles. We included 32 studies and 16 contained UA data. The overall UTI prevalence in young infants with jaundice from all 32 studies was 6.2% (95% CI, 3.9-8.9). From the 16 studies with UA data, the overall UTI prevalence was 8.7% (95% CI, 5.1-13.2), which decreased to 3.6% (95% CI, 2.0-5.8) with positive UA results included as a diagnostic criterion.
Conclusions: The estimated UTI prevalence in young infants with jaundice decreases substantially when UA results are incorporated into the UTI definition. Due to the heterogeneity of study subjects' ages and definitions of jaundice, positive UA results, and UTI, there is uncertainty about the exact prevalence and about which infants with hyperbilirubinemia warrant urine testing.
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