A teratological study of aminoglycoside antibiotic treatment during pregnancy

The aim of this study was to investigate the teratogenicity of aminoglycosi de antibiotics, such as parenteral gentamicin, streptomycin, tobramycin and oral neomycin, during pregnancy. Pair analysis of cases with congenital ab normalities and matched healthy controls was carried out. The setting was t he population-based dataset of the Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance of C ongenital Abnormalities, 1980-96, In total, 38,151 pregnant women who had n ewborn infants without any defects (control group) and 22,865 pregnant wome n who had foetuses or newborns with congenital abnormalities were included in the study. 38 (0.16%) and 42 (0.11%) pregnant women in the case and cont rol groups, respectively, were heated with the aminoglycosides studied. A t eratogenic potential of gentamicin and neomycin was not indicated by a comp arison of the occurrence of aminoglycoside antibiotic treatments in the tot al control group as referent with the figures of different congenital abnor mality groups. In addition, the case-control pair analysis during the secon d-third months of pregnancy did not show a teratogenic risk of gentamicin a nd neomycin. The conclusion of this study is that treatment with parenteral gentamicin and oral neomycin during pregnancy presents no detectable terat ogenic risk to the foetus, when restricted to structural developmental dist urbances.