Infectious complication rate

Method

Proportion of patients developing an infectious complication as defined by each trial's own criteria, pooled as a risk ratio or odds ratio. The case definition and the clinical setting are recorded on the edge, since postoperative, burn and critical-care definitions do not overlap.

The method is part of the endpoint identity. Studies measuring the same quantity by a different method are held as separate endpoints.

Notes

This is a composite that wound infection incidence and non-wound infection (pneumonia, urinary, bloodstream) together partition, and in PMID 38243579 those partitions moved in OPPOSITE directions — so the composite can read null while a real effect exists in one component, and a component result must never be entered here as though it were the whole. Also distinct from any adverse event incidence, which counts infections alongside everything else with a much larger numerator, and from infection-related withdrawal or reoperation rate, which counts a consequence of infection rather than infection.

Findings

2 findings from 1 compound, strongest first.

• L-glutamine — no detected effect on

  BLikelyGrade B, Likely. Human evidence, limited replication or design limits.FindingNull resultreplicated ×1

  “GLN supplementation did not affect overall morbidity (RR = 0.84, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.36; p = 0.473) and infectious morbidity (RR = 0.64; 95% CI = 0.38 to 1.07; p = 0.087).”

  Study

  meta-analysis

  Population

  patients undergoing major elective abdominal operations

  Effect of glutamine dipeptide supplementation on primary outcomes for elective major surgery: systematic review and meta-analysis.2015PMID:25584966

• L-glutamine — no detected effect on

  BLikelyGrade B, Likely. Human evidence, limited replication or design limits.FindingNull resultreplicated ×1

  “When the four studies in which the researchers reported infectious complications were aggregated, enteral GLN supplementation was not associated with a reduction in infectious complications (RR 0.93, 95 % CI 0.79–1.10, p =0.39; heterogeneity I2 = 0 %) (Fig..”

  Study

  meta-analysis

  Participants

  776

  Population

  Adult critically ill ICU patients given enteral glutamine against an isonitrogenous control; secondary endpoint (primary was hospital mortality); 4 pooled trials; infection defined by each source trial

  Effect 0.93 risk ratio, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.1

  Enteral glutamine supplementation in critically ill patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.2015PMID:26283217