Prophylactic Use of Macrolide Antibiotics for the Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation: A Meta-Analysis

Wentao Ni, Xiaodi Shao, Xuejiu Cai, Chuanqi Wei, Junchang Cui, Rui Wang and Youning Liu

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: Background: Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPDs) can lead to high frequencies and rates of hospitalization and mortality. Macrolides are a class of antibiotics that possess both antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. Since the occurrence of AECOPDs is associated with aggravation of airway inflammation and bacterial infections, prophylactic macrolide treatment may be an effective approach towards the prevention of AECOPDs. Methods: We systemically searched the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated the effect of prophylactic macrolide therapy on the prevention of AECOPDs. The primary outcomes were the total number of patients with one or more exacerbations as well as the rate of exacerbations per patient per year. Results: Nine RCTs comprising 1666 patients met the inclusion criteria. Pooled evidence showed macrolides could reduce the frequency of exacerbations in patients with COPD by both unweighted (RR = 0.70; 95% CI: 0.56–0.87; P

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121257 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 21257&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0121257

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121257

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().