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The systematic review by Savaris and colleagues1 is important for two reasons. First is the review of the treatment of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), a common condition for which the management is contentious, driven by traditions and not necessarily evidence-based. Second, the publication of this abridged review will help to strengthen links between the Sexually Transmitted Infections Cochrane Review Group (STICRG, https://sti.cochrane.org/)2 and the journal to bring important clinical evidence from the Cochrane Library closer to our readers and other practitioners.
The systematic review of antibiotic therapy for PID, which included 37 randomised controlled trials, makes for interesting reading, particularly about the use of nitroimidazoles.1 The evidence suggests that the addition of metronidazole to any of the evaluated regimens does not improve clinical cure for either mild to moderate PID (5 trials, 1383 women) or severe PID (11 trials, 2427 women).1 The authors judged the quality of the evidence as moderate rather than high, presumably because of missing information from the trial reports (figures 1 and 2 in the published paper).1 The authors suggest that other antibiotics in the regimens tested must …