Effects of N-acetylcysteine treatment in acute respiratory distress syndrome: A meta-analysis.

Effects of N-acetylcysteine treatment in acute respiratory distress syndrome: A meta-analysis. Exp Ther Med. 2017 Oct;14(4):2863-2868 Authors: Zhang Y, Ding S, Li C, Wang Y, Chen Z, Wang Z Abstract Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a serious complication of acute lung injury. Severe systemic inflammation is the main cause of multiple organ dysfunction and high mortality. Removal of reactive oxygen species by anti-oxidants has been applied in clinical practice. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is the most commonly used anti-oxidant. However, the benefit of anti-oxidant therapy was not consistently demonstrated by previous studies. In the present study, a meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of NAC for adult patients with ARDS. The PubMed, Cochrane and EMBASE databases were searched to retrieve all of the available randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published until October 2015. Quality evaluation of included studies was performed according to the modified Jadad scale score. The Cochrane Collaboration Review Manager 5.3 software was used to perform the meta-analysis. Five RCTs comprising 183 patients were found to be eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Pooled analysis showed that NAC did not contribute to reduce short-term mortality [risk ratio (RR)=0.73; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.50-1.07; P=0.10] or 30-day mortality (RR=0.72; 95% CI: 0.44-1.19; P=0.20) when compared with those in the control group. How...
Source: Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine - Category: General Medicine Tags: Exp Ther Med Source Type: research