Efficacy and safety of glucocorticoids in community-acquired pneumonia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials / 中华急诊医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate efficacy and safety of glucocorticoids for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).Methods We searched relevant randomized controlled trials (RCT) from Pubmed,EMBASE,Cochrane Library,Chinese Journal Full-text Database,Chinese Biomedical Literature Database and traced the related reference to obtain the information that had not been found by using key words of steroids,glucocorticoids,cortisol,corticosteroids,community acquired pneumonia and CAP.The quality of RCT included was evaluated.Meta-analysis was performed with RevMan 5.0 provided by the Cochrance Collaboration.Results Seven RCTs involving 944 patients were included in the meta-analysis.Mean length of hospital stay in glucocorticoids treatment group was significant shorter than that in conventional treatment group (WMD =-1.70,95％ CI:-2.01-1.39,Z =10.81,P ＜0.01).No significant differences were found regarding mortality (RR =0.77,95％ CI 0.46-1.27,Z =1.03,P =0.30),mean length of ICU stay (WMD =1.17,95％ CI:-1.68-4.02,Z =0.81,P =0.42),the risk of double infection (RR =1.32,95％ CI 0.66-2.63,Z=0.79,P=0.43),the incidence of hyperglycemia (RR=1.84,95％ CI0.76-4.41,,Z=1.36,P=0.17),the incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding (RR =1.98,95％ CI O.37-10.59,Z =0.80,P =0.42) between conventional treatment group and glucocorticoids treatment group.Conclusions Glucocorticoids treatment used in patients with community-acquired pneumonia may shorten the course of illness and possess better safety,but could not reduce the mortality.