ReviewEuropean respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society2021
Corticosteroids for CAP, influenza and COVID-19: when, how and benefits or harm?
Review in European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 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
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Low-dose corticosteroids in severe pulmonary infection: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.BMJ open respiratory research · 2026Pooled it
- Preparing for pandemics: a systematic review of pandemic influenza clinical management guidelines.BMC medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Adjunct prednisone in community-acquired pneumonia: 180-day outcome of a multicentre, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2023Trial
- Systemic corticosteroids for severe community-acquired pneumonia: a narrative review of mechanisms and critical appraisal of recent trials in ICU.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2026Review
- Chronic hypoxia adaptation at high altitude: a perspective on Its potential role in mortality in viral pneumonia-associated ARDS and implications for personalized critical care.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Review
- Severe community-acquired pneumonia: an integral approach.Journal of intensive care · 2026Review
- Machine learning for early screening of influenza A-associated invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in hospitalized patients: a real-world study.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Article
- Dose-response relationship of pre-ICU corticosteroids and influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis: a multicenter target trial emulation.Annals of intensive care · 2026Article
- Article
- Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of hospitalized pediatric patients with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in China: a retrospective multicenter study.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Article
- Steroids in severe community-acquired pneumonia.Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2024Article
- Outcomes of corticosteroid therapy in patients with viral community-acquired pneumonia.Pneumonia (Nathan Qld.) · 2024Article
- Article
- Mortality reduction in severe community-acquired pneumonia: key findings from a large randomized controlled trial and their clinical implications.Annals of translational medicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Multi-Omics Endotypes in ICU Sepsis-Induced Immunosuppression.Microorganisms · 2023Review
- Optimal Duration of Systemic Corticosteroids in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Open forum infectious diseases · 2023Article
- The Impact of Corticosteroids on the Outcome of Fungal Disease: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Current fungal infection reports · 2023Review
- Relationship between steroid use and superinfections in SARS-CoV-2 patients. A systematic review and meta-analysis.Infection ecology & epidemiology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCorticosteroids have been considered in medicine for a long time, and they are broadly prescribed. In infectious diseases, corticosteroids have been regarded as a thread due to their immunosuppressive effects and therefore their anti-inflammatory properties. MAIN: In recent years, there have been several studies published that aimed to determine the role of corticosteroids in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), because, despite significant advances in new antibiotics and supportive care, deaths of patients with CAP remain unacceptably high. While the 2007 Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA)/American Thoracic Society (ATS) CAP guidelines did not mention the use of corticosteroids in the management of CAP, the recently published 2019 IDSA/ATS guidelines recommended their use in patients with septic shock refractory to vasopressors and fluid resuscitation. Regarding viral infection, the use of corticosteroids in patients with influenza has shown to be associated with significantly higher mortality and higher incidence of nosocomial infection, while in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) there is a good body of evidence of the benefit of corticosteroids in terms of mortality.
conclusionsThe use of corticosteroids has been considered as a potential alternative co-adjuvant treatment in patients with pneumonia. In patients with COVID-19, the evidence is quite strong and there is a clear benefit of the use of corticosteroids in those patients presenting severe forms of disease.
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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.