Effect of vitamin A as an adjuvant therapy for pneumonia in children: a Meta analysis

Abstract:

Objective To investigate the effect and safety of vitamin A supplementation in children with pneumonia through a systematic review.Methods Cochrane Library, EMbase, PubMed, China Biology Medicine disc, CNKI, and Wanfang Data were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on vitamin A as an adjuvant therapy for pneumonia in children. Two reviewers independently screened the studies and evaluated their quality according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RevMan5.3 was used for the Meta analysis.Results A total of 15 RCTs with 3 021 patients were included. The Meta analysis showed that vitamin A supplementation did not reduce the mortality of children with pneumonia (P > 0.05), but it increased the overall clinical response rate (P < 0.05) and shortened the duration of pyrexia and cough, clearance time of signs and abnormal chest X-ray results, and length of hospital stay (P < 0.05). As an adjuvant therapy, vitamin A did not increase the incidence rates of adverse reactions such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, allergy, and bregma bulging.Conclusions Current evidence shows that in the treatment of pneumonia in children, vitamin A supplementation helps to relieve clinical symptoms and signs and shorten the length of hospital stay.The adjuvant therapy does not increase the incidence rates of adverse reactions.