Articles: prospective-studies.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jul 2021
Review Meta AnalysisMedical adjuvant treatment to increase patency of arteriovenous fistulae and grafts.
People with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) often require either the formation of an arteriovenous fistula (AVF) or an interposition prosthetic arteriovenous graft (AVG) for haemodialysis. These access sites should ideally have a long life and a low rate of complications (e.g. thrombosis, infection, stenosis, aneurysm formation and distal limb ischaemia). Although some of the complications may be unavoidable, any adjuvant technique or medical treatment aimed at decreasing complications would be welcome. This is the fourth update of the review first published in 2003. ⋯ The meta-analyses of three studies for ticlopidine (an antiplatelet treatment), which all used the same dose of treatment but with a short follow-up of only one month, suggest ticlopidine may have a beneficial effect as an adjuvant treatment to increase the patency of AVFs and AVGs in the short term. There was insufficient evidence to determine if there was a difference in graft patency between placebo and other treatments such as aspirin, fish oil, clopidogrel, dipyridamole, dipyridamole plus aspirin, warfarin, sulphinpyrazone and GTN patch. The certainty of the evidence was low to moderate due to short follow-up periods, the small number of studies for each comparison, small sample sizes, heterogeneity between trials and risk of bias due to incomplete reporting. Therefore, it appears reasonable to suggest further prospective studies be undertaken to assess the use of these antiplatelet drugs in renal patients with an AVF or AVG.
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Meta Analysis
Fixation options for reconstruction of the greater trochanter in unstable intertrochanteric fracture with arthroplasty.
With the aggravation of population aging, the incidence of intertrochanteric fracture also increases dramatically. Patients are often elderly accompany with severe osteoporosis and various complications. Therefore, we should select an individualized treatment based on the each patient's state. Arthroplasty is recommended for unstable fractures with obvious osteoporosis, ipsilateral femoral head necrosis or arthritis. Rigid fixation of the greater trochanter with arthroplasty is challenging because of the powerful pulling forces created by multiple muscles being transmitted to the greater trochanter. Currently, there are few contemporary literatures on the evaluation of unstable intertrochanteric fracture with efficient fixation of the greater trochanter. Moreover, there is no consensus to choose which implant to immobilize the greater trochanter. The purpose of this study was to review previous literatures and provide a valuable guidance. ⋯ The locking plate, which not only provides rigid fixation but also results in lower rate of postoperative complications. However, further prospective randomized and cohort studies are needed.
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Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Treatment for overactive bladder: A meta-analysis of transcutaneous tibial nerve stimulation versus percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation.
We aim to compare the safety and effectiveness of transcutaneous tibial nerve stimulation (TTNS) versus percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation (PTNS) in treating overactive bladder. ⋯ Current data supported that TTNS is as effective as PTNS for the treatment of overactive bladder, moreover, with no reported adverse events. However, the evidence is low-grade and well-designed prospective studies with a large sample size are warranted to verify our findings.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · May 2021
Review Meta AnalysisRapid versus standard antimicrobial susceptibility testing to guide treatment of bloodstream infection.
Rapid antimicrobial susceptibility tests are expected to reduce the time to clinically important results of a blood culture. This might enable clinicians to better target therapy to a person's needs, and thereby, improve health outcomes (mortality, length of hospital stay), and reduce unnecessary prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics; thereby reducing antimicrobial resistance rates. ⋯ Two review authors independently screened references, full-text reports of potentially relevant studies, extracted data from the studies, and assessed risk of bias. Any disagreement was discussed and resolved with a third review author. For mortality, a dichotomous outcome, we extracted the number of events in each arm, and presented a risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) to compare rapid susceptibility testing to conventional methods. We used Review Manager 5.4 to meta-analyse the data. For other outcomes, which are time-to-event outcomes (time-to-discharge from hospital, time-to-first appropriate antibiotic change), we conducted qualitative narrative synthesis, due to heterogeneity of outcome measures. MAIN RESULTS: We included six trials, with 1638 participants. For rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing compared to conventional methods, there was little or no difference in mortality between groups (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.46; 6 RCTs, 1638 participants; low-certainty evidence). In subgroup analysis, for rapid genotypic or molecular antimicrobial susceptibility testing compared to conventional methods, there was little or no difference in mortality between groups (RR 1.02, 95% CI 0.69 to 1.49; 4 RCTs, 1074 participants; low-certainty evidence). For phenotypic rapid susceptibility testing compared to conventional methods, there was little or no difference in mortality between groups (RR 1.37, 95% CI 0.80 to 2.35; 2 RCTs, 564 participants; low-certainty evidence). In qualitative analysis, rapid susceptibility testing may make little or no difference in time-to-discharge (4 RCTs, 1165 participants; low-certainty evidence). In qualitative analysis, rapid genotypic susceptibility testing compared to conventional testing may make little or no difference in time-to-appropriate antibiotic (3 RCTs, 929 participants; low-certainty evidence). In subgroup analysis, rapid phenotypic susceptibility testing compared to conventional testing may improve time-to-appropriate antibiotic (RR -17.29, CI -45.05 to 10.47; 2 RCTs, 564 participants; low-certainty evidence). AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: The theoretical benefits of rapid susceptibility testing have not been demonstrated to directly improve mortality, time-to-discharge, or time-to-appropriate antibiotic in these randomized studies. Future large prospective studies should be designed to focus on the most clinically meaningful outcomes, and aim to optimize blood culture pathways.
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A lot of research evidence shows that exosomes play an indelible role in the prognosis of lung cancer, but there are many disputes. Therefore, we conduct a meta-analysis to further demonstrate. ⋯ Our analysis indicated that the expression level of exosomes was closely associated with the OS and DFS of patients with lung cancer, suggesting that exosomes are associated with poor prognosis of lung cancer. Exosomes may be a new biomarker for the prognosis of lung cancer, although a large number of prospective studies are still needed to support this.