SynthesisPloS one2016
Efficacy and Safety of Adjunctive Corticosteroids Therapy for Severe Community-Acquired Pneumonia in Adults: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 3 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
21 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 53 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy and safety of glucocorticoids therapy of severe community-acquired pneumonia in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC geriatrics · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Corticosteroids as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of influenza.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Corticosteroids in severe community-acquired pneumonia: friend, foe or both?Pneumonia (Nathan Qld.) · 2026Review
- Comparative effect of different corticosteroids in severe community-acquired pneumonia: a network meta-analysis.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2025Article
- Glucocorticoid therapy in respiratory illness: bench to bedside.Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research · 2022Review
- Article
- Article
- Real-world corticosteroid use in severe pneumonia: a propensity-score-matched study.Critical care (London, England) · 2021Observational
- Corticosteroids in Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Review of Current Literature.The Journal of pharmacy technology : jPT : official publication of the Association of Pharmacy Technicians · 2021Review
- Comparing Several Treatments with Antibiotics for Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Iranian journal of public health · 2021Review
- Updates on community acquired pneumonia management in the ICU.Pharmacology & therapeutics · 2021Review
- Comparative Efficacy of Chinese Herbal Injections for Treating Severe Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Bayesian Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2021Review
- Community-acquired pneumonia in critically ill very old patients: a growing problem.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2020Review
- Corticosteroids for Community-Acquired Pneumonia: Overstated Benefits and Understated Risks.Chest · 2019Article
- Article
- Hot topics and current controversies in community-acquired pneumonia.Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2019Review
- Incidence and Related Factors for Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia Among Older Bedridden Patients in China: A Hospital-Based Multicenter Registry Data Based Study.Frontiers in public health · 2019Article
- Adjuvant therapies in critical care: steroids in community-acquired pneumonia.Intensive care medicine · 2018Article
- Research in community-acquired pneumonia: the next steps.Intensive care medicine · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAdjunctive corticosteroids therapy is an attractive option for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) treatment. However, the effectiveness of adjunctive corticosteroids on mortality of CAP remains inconsistent, especially in severe CAP. We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of adjunctive corticosteroids in severe CAP patients.
methodsThree databases of PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library were searched for related studies published in English up to December, 2015. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of corticosteroids in hospitalized adults with severe CAP were included. Meta-analysis was performed by a random-effect model with STATA 11.0 software. We estimated the summary risk ratios (RRs) or effect size (ES) with its corresponding 95% confidence interval (95%CI) to assess the outcomes.
resultsWe included 8 RCTs enrolling 528 severe CAP patients. Adjunctive corticosteroids significantly reduced all-cause mortality (RR = 0.46, 95%CI: 0.28 to 0.77, p = 0.003), risk of adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (RR = 0.23, 95%CI: 0.07 to 0.80, p = 0.02) and need for mechanical ventilation (RR = 0.50, 95%CI: 0.27 to 0.92, p = 0.026). Adjunctive corticosteroids did not increase frequency of hyperglycemia requiring treatment (RR = 1.03, 95%CI: 0.61 to 1.72, p = 0.91) or gastrointestinal hemorrhage (RR = 0.66, 95%CI: 0.19 to 2.31, p = 0.52). In subgroup analysis by duration of corticosteroids, we found that prolonged corticosteroids therapy significantly reduced all-cause mortality (RR = 0.41, 95%CI: 0.20 to 0.83, p = 0.01) and length of hospital stay (-4.76 days, 95% CI:-8.13 to -1.40, p = 0.006).
conclusionsResults from this meta-analysis suggested that adjunctive corticosteroids therapy was safe and beneficial for severe CAP. In addition, prolonged corticosteroids therapy was more effective. These results should be confirmed by adequately powered studies in the future.
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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.