Clinical nutrition : official journal of the European Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
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Review Meta Analysis
The use of pre- pro- and synbiotics in adult intensive care unit patients: systematic review.
This review investigated whether the administration of enteral pre-, pro- and synbiotics compared with controls in adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients reduced the incidence of nosocomial infections, length of ICU stay, hospital mortality and specifically pneumonia. ⋯ The use of pre- pro- or synbiotics in adult critically ill patients confers no statistically significant benefit in the outcome criteria studied. There is currently a lack of evidence to support the use of pre- pro- or synbiotics in patients admitted to adult ICUs, and a large well-designed trial is needed in this area.