Cochrane Db Syst Rev
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2017
Review Meta AnalysisProbiotics for preventing urinary tract infection in people with neuropathic bladder.
Neuropathic or neurogenic bladder describes a process of dysfunctional voiding as the result of injury in the brain, spinal cord or nerves innervating the bladder. People with neuropathic bladder, such as from spinal cord injury (SCI), are at significant risk of morbidity from urinary tract infections (UTI). Effective methods to prevent UTI in people with SCI have been sought for many years. Probiotics (micro-organisms that exert beneficial health effects in the host) have been recommended for bacterial interference of the urological tract to reduce colonisation by uropathogen and to manage the dual problems of infection and antibiotic resistance. ⋯ In this review, there were no studies identified addressing oral probiotics in preventing UTI in people with neuropathic bladder. It is uncertain if the risk of symptomatic UTI is reduced in people with neuropathic bladders via intravesical instillation of non-pathogenic E. coli as data were derived from small studies with high risk of bias.Although very minimal levels of harm was reported with this procedure, due to variable success rates, the need for strict adherence to instillation protocols together with high attrition rates in these studies, it is doubtful bladder instillation will be a widely accepted intervention in its current form.It is recommended that further appropriately powered RCTs with more robust methodological reporting be carried out.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2017
Review Meta AnalysisPlacebo response and remission rates in randomised trials of induction and maintenance therapy for ulcerative colitis.
It is important to minimize placebo rates in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to efficiently detect treatment differences between interventions. Historically, high placebo rates have been observed in clinical trials of ulcerative colitis (UC). A better understanding of factors influencing placebo rates may lead to more informed clinical trial design. ⋯ Placebo response and remission rates vary according to endoscopic disease severity and rectal bleeding score at trial entry, class of agent, disease duration, and the time point at which the primary outcome was measured. These observations have important implications for the design and conduct of future clinical trials in UC and will help researchers design trials, determine required sample sizes and also provide useful information about trial design features which should be considered when planning new trials.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2017
Review Meta AnalysisCertolizumab pegol (CDP870) for rheumatoid arthritis in adults.
Tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha inhibitors are beneficial for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for reducing the risk of joint damage, improving physical function and improving the quality of life. This review is an update of the 2014 Cochrane Review of the treatment of RA with certolizumab pegol. ⋯ The results and conclusions did not change from the previous review. There is a moderate to high certainty of evidence from randomised controlled trials that certolizumab pegol, alone or combined with methotrexate, is beneficial in the treatment of RA for improved ACR50 and health-related quality of life, an increased chance of remission of RA, and reduced joint damage as seen on x-ray. Fewer people stopped taking their treatment, but most of these who did stopped due to serious adverse events. Adverse events were more frequent with active treatment. We found a clinically but not statistically significant risk of serious adverse events.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2017
Review Meta Analysis Retracted PublicationPharmacotherapy for smoking cessation: effects by subgroup defined by genetically informed biomarkers.
Smoking cessation therapies are not effective for all smokers, and researchers are interested in identifying those subgroups of individuals (e.g. based on genotype) who respond best to specific treatments. ⋯ We did not identify widespread differential treatment effects of pharmacotherapy based on genotype. Some genotype groups within certain ethnic groups may benefit more from NRT or may benefit less from the combination of bupropion with NRT. The reader should interpret these results with caution because none of the statistically significant meta-analyses included more than two trials per genotype comparison, many confidence intervals were wide, and the quality of this evidence (GRADE) was generally moderate. Although we found evidence of superior NRT efficacy for NMR slow versus normal metabolisers, because of the lack of heterogeneity between NMR groups, we cannot conclude that NRT is more effective for slow metabolisers. Access to additional data from multiple trials is needed, particularly for comparisons of different pharmacotherapies.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2017
Review Meta AnalysisClinician-targeted interventions to influence antibiotic prescribing behaviour for acute respiratory infections in primary care: an overview of systematic reviews.
Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide health threat. Interventions that reduce antibiotic prescribing by clinicians are expected to reduce antibiotic resistance. Disparate interventions to change antibiotic prescribing behaviour for acute respiratory infections (ARIs) have been trialled and meta-analysed, but not yet synthesised in an overview. This overview synthesises evidence from systematic reviews, rather than individual trials. ⋯ We found evidence that CRP testing, shared decision making, and procalcitonin-guided management reduce antibiotic prescribing for patients with ARIs in primary care. These interventions may therefore reduce overall antibiotic consumption and consequently antibiotic resistance. There do not appear to be negative effects of these interventions on the outcomes of patient satisfaction and reconsultation, although there was limited measurement of these outcomes in the trials. This should be rectified in future trials.We could gather no information about the costs of management, and this along with the paucity of measurements meant that it was difficult to weigh the benefits and costs of implementing these interventions in practice.Most of this research was undertaken in high-income countries, and it may not generalise to other settings. The quality of evidence for the interventions of educational materials and tools for patients and clinicians was either low or very low, which prevented us from drawing any conclusions. High-quality trials are needed to further investigate these interventions.