Mucolytic agents versus placebo for chronic bronchitis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

CONCLUSIONS: In participants with chronic bronchitis or COPD, we are moderately confident that treatment with mucolytics leads to a small reduction in the likelihood of having an acute exacerbation, in days of disability per month and possibly hospitalisations, but is not associated with an increase in adverse events. There appears to be limited impact on lung function or health-related quality of life. Results are too imprecise to be certain whether or not there is an effect on mortality. Our confidence in the results is reduced by high levels of heterogeneity in many of the outcomes and the fact that effects on exacerbations shown in early trials were larger than those reported by more recent studies. This may be a result of greater risk of selection or publication bias in earlier trials, thus benefits of treatment may not be as great as was suggested by previous evidence. PMID: 31107966 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Cochrane Database Syst Rev Source Type: research