World J Gastrointest Surg. 2024 Nov 27;16(11):3546-3558. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v16.i11.3546.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Postoperative infections remain a significant source of morbidity among patients undergoing colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery. While probiotics have been proposed as a potential strategy to mitigate the risk of these infections, contemporary meta-analyses have produced conflicting findings.
AIM: To synthesize the available evidence regarding the prophylactic efficacy of probiotics in preventing infections following CRC surgery.
METHODS: A comprehensive search of PubMed and Scopus was conducted to identify relevant meta-analyses published up to February 2024. To assess the efficacy of probiotics on outcomes, relative risks (RR) and their corresponding 95%CI were pooled using a random effects model.
RESULTS: This comprehensive umbrella meta-analysis integrated eleven meta-analyses encompassing 11518 participants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Probiotics administration resulted in a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of total infections (RR: 0.40, 95%CI: 0.31-0.51; moderate certainty), surgical site infections (RR: 0.56, 95%CI: 0.49-0.63; high certainty), pneumonia (RR: 0.38, 95%CI: 0.30-0.48; high certainty), urinary tract infections (RR: 0.44, 95%CI: 0.31-0.61; moderate certainty), bacteremia (RR: 0.41, 95%CI: 0.30-0.56; high certainty), and sepsis (RR: 0.35, 95%CI: 0.25-0.44; high certainty). However, probiotics did not significantly affect intra-abdominal, central line, or peritoneal infections.
CONCLUSION: Probiotics have demonstrated potential in mitigating postoperative infectious complications among patients undergoing CRC surgery.
PMID:39649207 | PMC:PMC11622088 | DOI:10.4240/wjgs.v16.i11.3546
