Table 2.

Randomised controlled trials: Oral antibiotic therapy or short-term parenteral therapy (<2 weeks) followed by oral antibiotic therapy vs. parenteral antibiotic therapy.

Article	Year	Osteomyelitis Type	Sample Size	Investigation	Exclusion Criteria	Results
Li et al. [25]	2019	Bone and joint infection, including infection of osteosynthetic material	1054	Standard oral vs. standard IV	S. aureus bacteraemia; endocarditis, concomitant infection requiring prolonged antibiotics; mild osteomyelitis; no suitable antibiotic choices to permit randomisation; septic shock; unlikely to comply with trial; mycobacterial, fungal, parasitic, or viral infection	Non-inferiority of oral therapy to parenteral therapy. Treatment failure at 1 year 13.2% vs. 14.6% respectively
Azamgarhi et al. [26]	2021	Bone and joint infection	328	Standard oral vs. standard IV	Not available	OVIVA trial findings can be safely implemented into clinical practice
Gentry et al. [27]	1991	Non-prosthesis osteomyelitis	33	Ofloxacin vs. cephalosporin	Multiple sites of infection, retained prosthetic material, bacteremia	Ofloxacin statistically non- inferior to IV antibiotics
Gentry et al. [28]	1990	Osteomyelitis after surgical debridement	59	Ciprofloxacin vs. beta-lactam + aminoglycoside	Septicemia, MRSA	Ciprofloxacin statistically non-inferior to IV antibiotics
Gomis et al. [29]	1985	Osteomyelitis including prosthesis infection	32	Ofloxacin vs. imipenem	Not available	Ofloxacin non-inferior to IV imipenem-cilastatin
Euba et al. [30]	2009	Non-axial Staphylococcus aureus osteomyelitis	50	TMP-SMX + rifampicin vs. cloxacillin	Prosthetic joint infection, polymicrobial	8 weeks of co-trimoxazole non inferior to or 6 weeks of IV + 2 weeks of PO oxacillin

Legend: IV—intravenous, MRSA—Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, TMP-SMX—trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.