Probiotics for people with hepatic encephalopathy.

CONCLUSIONS: The majority of included trials suffered from a high risk of systematic error ('bias') and a high risk of random error ('play of chance'). Accordingly, we consider the evidence to be of low quality. Compared with placebo or no intervention, probiotics probably improve recovery and may lead to improvements in the development of overt hepatic encephalopathy, quality of life, and plasma ammonia concentrations, but probiotics may lead to little or no difference in mortality. Whether probiotics are better than lactulose for hepatic encephalopathy is uncertain because the quality of the available evidence is very low. High-quality randomised clinical trials with standardised outcome collection and data reporting are needed to further clarify the true efficacy of probiotics. PMID: 28230908 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Cochrane Database Syst Rev Source Type: research