Journal article
Corticosteroids for pain relief in sore throat: systematic review and meta-analysis
- Abstract:
- Objective: To evaluate whether systemic corticosteroids improve symptoms of sore throat in adults and children. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources: Cochrane Central, Medline, Embase, Database of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE), NHS Health Economics Database, and bibliographies. Outcome measures: Percentage of patients with complete resolution at 24 and 48 hours, mean time to onset of pain relief, mean time to complete resolution of symptoms, days missed from work or school, recurrence, and adverse events. Results: We included eight trials, consisting of 743 patients in total (369 children, 374 adults). 348 (47%) had exudative sore throat, and 330 (44%) were positive for group A β-haemolytic streptococcus. In addition to antibiotics and analgesia, corticosteroids significantly increased the likelihood of complete resolution of pain at 24 hours (four trials) by more than three times (relative risk 3.2, 95% confidence interval 2.0 to 5.1), and at 48 hours (three trials) to a lesser extent (1.7, 1.3 to 2.1). Corticosteroids (six trials) reduced mean time to onset of pain relief by more than 6 hours (95% confidence interval 3.4 to 9.3, P<0.001), although significant heterogeneity was present. The mean time to complete resolution was inconsistent across trials and a pooled analysis was not undertaken. Reporting of other outcomes was limited. Conclusions: Corticosteroids provide symptomatic relief of pain in sore throat, in addition to antibiotic therapy, mainly in participants with severe exudative sore throat.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 134.9KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1136/bmj.b2976
Authors
- Publisher:
- BMJ Publishing
- Journal:
- BMJ (British Medical Journal) More from this journal
- Volume:
- 339
- Issue:
- 7719
- Article number:
- b2976
- Publication date:
- 2009-08-01
- Edition:
- Publisher's version
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1756-1833
- ISSN:
-
1759-2151
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Subjects:
- UUID:
-
uuid:41865bf5-6dc4-4f0f-aa30-d0339dac938d
- Local pid:
-
ora:2956
- Deposit date:
-
2009-09-15
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- G Hayward et al
- Copyright date:
- 2009
- Notes:
-
Citation: Hayward, G. et al. (2009) 'Corticosteroids for pain relief in sore throat: systematic review and meta-analysis', BMJ 339 (7719), b2976. [Available at http://www.bmj.com]. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record