Early Tx doesn't reduce risk for congenital toxoplasmosis

Even though some European countries have been screening prenatally for congenital toxoplasmosis for about 30 years, authors of a systematic review of cohort studies on the subject say it is unclear whether early treatment significantly reduces risk for the infection in newborns.

Researchers included 26 studies in the meta-analysis. They calculated an adjusted odds ratio (OR 0.48; P=0.05) for mother-to-child transmission when treatment was started prenatally within 3 weeks of seroconversion versus when treatment was started after 8 or more weeks. And prenatal treatment did not significantly reduce the risk of clinical manifestations in infected live-born infants (adjusted OR for treated vs. untreated 1.11).

The researchers also found that increasing gestational age at seroconversion was associated with increased risk of mother-to-child transmission (OR 1.15) and decreased risk of intracranial lesions (0.91), but not with eye lesions (0.97).