ReviewEuropean journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology2013
No evidence for the effectiveness of systemic corticosteroids in acute pharyngitis, community-acquired pneumonia and acute otitis media.
Review in European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systemic corticosteroids for acute otitis media in children.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Corticosteroids for treatment of sore throat: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2017Pooled it
- Integrated multiplex PCR and metatranscriptomics reveal upper-lower airway microbial landscapes in pediatric respiratory infections.Virologica Sinica · 2026Article
- Clinical outcome of cats with suppurative otitis media and intact tympanum submitted to myringotomy: retrospective findings from 26 cases.Journal of feline medicine and surgery · 2024Article
- Effects of Antiviral Therapy and Glucocorticoid Therapy on Fever Duration in Pediatric Patients with Influenza.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2021Article
- The efficacy and safety of Banxia-Houpo-Tang for chronic pharyngitis: A protocol for systematic review and meta analysis.Medicine · 2020Article
- Anti-inflammatory effect and the effect on acute pharyngitis rats model of compound Lobelia oral liquid.Saudi journal of biological sciences · 2019Article
- Using predicate and provenance information from a knowledge graph for drug efficacy screening.Journal of biomedical semantics · 2018Article
- Drugs Delivery by Charities: A Possible Epidemiologic Indicator in Children of Undocumented Migrants.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2017Observational
- Is Corticosteroid of No Use for Pediatric Patients with Common Cold Undergoing Anesthesia? A Randomized, Double-Blind, Clinical Trial.Anesthesiology and pain medicine · 2017Article
- Adjunct Systemic Corticosteroid Therapy in Children With Community-Acquired Pneumonia in the Outpatient Setting.Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society · 2015Article
- Pediatric health care quality measures: considerations for pharmacotherapy.Paediatric drugs · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Corticosteroids have been used to treat infectious diseases for more than 50 years but, although it has been shown that they are highly effective in improving the clinical course of some diseases, their effects have not been clearly defined in others. Nevertheless, they are still used by a considerable number of physicians. This review analyses the role of systemic corticosteroids in the treatment of acute pharyngitis (AP), community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and acute otitis media (AOM). A number of trials involving patients with AP have been carried out, but most are marred by methodological flaws that do not allow any firm conclusions to be drawn. The number of trials involving CAP patients is even higher, and the data suggest that corticosteroids may reduce the risk of death only in patients with severe disease. There are very few data concerning AOM, and there is currently no reason for prescribing corticosteroids to treat it. Overall, the data showed that there is, currently, no indication for the universal use of systemic corticosteroids in any of the reviewed diseases and, further, high-quality studies of all of these respiratory tract infections are needed in order to identify the patients for whom the prescription of corticosteroids is rationally acceptable.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.