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Comparison of Pathogen Eradication Rate and Safety of Anti‐Bacterial Agents for Bronchitis: A Network Meta‐Analysis

A large number of population in both developing and developed countries are affected by bronchitis, among all the factors, bacterial infection was considered as a critical cause of acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis. Although several anti‐bacterial agents were proved to have the effect of alleviating bronchitis, their relative efficacies and potential side effects remained not clear. We are keen to compare the pathogen eradication rate and safety of anti‐bacterial agents for bronchitis. Relevant studies were searched in multiple sources and data were extracted from eligible studies. Then conventional meta‐analysis and network meta‐analysis (NMA) were conducted to determine the relative efficacy and safety of bronchitis medications. The efficacy of bronchitis medications was determined by using the outcome of pathogen eradication, including total pathogen eradication, pathogen eradication of Haemophilus influenzae, pathogen eradication of Moraxella catarrhalis, and pathogen eradication of Streptococcus pneumoniae. In addition, safety was assessed by using the outcome of adverse effects and diarrhoea. A 27 RCTs with 9,414 participants were included in the study. Among the medications, gatifloxacin and moxifloxacin exhibited better performance than clarithromycin with respect to pathogen eradication of H. influenzae (OR = 21.37, CI: 1.22–541.28; OR = 7.43, CI: 1.79–30.50). Clarithromycin, gemifloxacin, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, and telithromycin appeared to be more preferable than amoxicillin + clavulanate and azithromycin with respect to diarrhoea (all OR <1). The surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) results suggested that gemifloxacin and levofloxacin had a relatively high ranking in total pathogen eradication, whereas amoxicillin + clavulanate and azithromycin exhibited relatively lower ranking with respect to adverse effects and diarrhoea. Gemifloxacin and levofloxacin are more preferable than others for lowering respiratory tract inflammation and infections considering their balanced performance between pathogen eradication and adverse effects. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 3171–3183, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.