Clinical efficacy of probiotics in the treatment of patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther
; 21(6): 667-674, 2023 06.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2287033
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
This study was conducted to assess the clinical efficacy of probiotics in the treatment of patients with COVID19.METHODS:
PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for studies from their inception to 8 February 2022. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the clinical efficacy of probiotics with usual care or standard care for patients with COVID19 were included. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Random-effects model using MantelHaenszel and inverse variance methods were performed to analyze the data.RESULTS:
Eight RCTs with 900 patients were included. The study group receiving probiotics had a non-significantly lower rate of mortality than the control group had, but this difference was not significant (risk ratio [RR], 0.51; 95% CI, 0.22 to 1.16). However, the study group had significantly lower rates of dyspnea (RR, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.60), fever (RR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.16 to 0.85) and headache (RR, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.65). Higher complete remission of COVID-19-associated symptoms was observed in the study group than the control group (RR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.40-2.55).CONCLUSIONS:
Although probiotics use did not improve clinical outcomes or reduce inflammatory markers, it may relieve COVID-19-associated symptoms.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Probiotics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
14787210.2023.2189100
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