SynthesisBMC complementary and alternative medicine2018
Complementary and alternative medicine for treatment of atopic eczema in children under 14 years old: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in BMC complementary and alternative medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 10 papers.
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
10 citing papers in PubMed, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluating a School-Based Public Health Intervention for Self-Management in Children with Atopic Dermatitis: A Non-Randomized Controlled Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Mānuka oil based ECMT-154 versus vehicle control for the topical treatment of eczema: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial in community pharmacies in Aotearoa New Zealand.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2024Article
- Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Its Relationship with Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Observational
- Efficacy of a 3% Kānuka oil cream for the treatment of moderate-to-severe eczema: A single blind randomised vehicle-controlled trial.EClinicalMedicine · 2022Article
- Complementary and alternative medicine treatments for common skin diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis.JAAD international · 2021Review
- Diet and Skin Barrier: The Role of Dietary Interventions on Skin Barrier Function.Dermatology practical & conceptual · 2021Review
- Concordance Between Physician-rated and Caregiver-perceived Disease Severity in Children with Atopic Dermatitis: A Cross-sectional Study.Acta dermato-venereologica · 2020Article
- Correction to: Complementary and alternative medicine for treatment of atopic eczema in children under 14 years old: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.BMC complementary and alternative medicine · 2019Article
- Pooling the evidence: A review of swimming and atopic dermatitis.Pediatric dermatologyReview
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDue to limitations of conventional medicine for atopic eczema (AE), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used as an alternative, maintaining, or simultaneous treatment for AE. We aimed to evaluate the beneficial and harmful effects of CAM for children with AE under 14 years old.
methodsWe searched for randomized trials on CAM in 12 Chinese and English databases from their inception to May 2018. We included children (< 14 years) diagnosed with AE, who received CAM therapy alone or combined with conventional medicine. We extracted data, and used the Cochrane "Risk of bias" tool to assess methodological quality. Effect was presented as relative risk (RR) or mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) using RevMan 5.3.
resultsTwenty-four randomized controlled trials involving 2233 children with AE were included. Methodological quality was of unclear or high risk of bias in general. The trials tested 5 different types of CAM therapies, including probiotics, diet, biofilm, borage oil, and swimming. Compared to placebo, probiotics showed improved effect for the SCORAD index (MD 9.01, 95% CI 7.12-10.90; n = 5). For symptoms and signs such as itching, skin lesions, CAM combined with usual care was more effective for symptom relief ≥95% (RR 1.47, 95% CI 1.30-1.68; n = 8), and for ≥50% symptoms improvement (RR 1.34, 1.25-1.45; n = 9) compared to usual care. There was no statistic significant difference between CAM and usual care on ≥95% improvement or ≥ 50% improvement of symptoms. However, swimming, diet and biofilm showed improvement of clinical symptoms compared with usual care. At follow-up of 8 weeks to 3 years, CAM alone or combined with usual care showed lower relapse rate (RR 0.38, 0.28-0.51, n = 2; RR 0.31, 0.24-0.40, n = 7; respectively) compared to usual care. Twelve out of 24 trials reported no occurrence of severe adverse events.
conclusionsLow evidence demonstrates that some CAM modalities may improve symptoms of childhood AE and reduce relapse rate. Safety remains unclear due to insufficient reporting. Further well-designed randomized trials are needed to confirm the potential beneficial effect and to establish safety use.
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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.