TABLE 1.
Probiotics for very preterm or very low birth weight infants to prevent Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) based on Cochrane Database.
| Probiotics versus control, subgroup | |||
| No. of participants | Effect size (risk ratio M-H, Fixed, 95% CI)* | References | |
| Outcome 1: | |||
| Necrotizing enterocolitis | 10,604 | 0.54 (0.45, 0.65) | |
| Bifidobacterium spp. Plus Lactobacillus spp. | 2,041 | 0.36 (0.23, 0.59) | Lin et al., 2005, 2008; Rouge et al., 2009; Samanta et al., 2009; Braga et al., 2011; Al-Hosni et al., 2012; Roy et al., 2014; Saengtawesin et al., 2014; Van Niekerk et al., 2014; Chowdhury et al., 2016; Strus et al., 2018 |
| Bifidobacterium spp. | 2,988 | 0.72 (0.54, 0.96) | Kitajima et al., 1997; Fujii et al., 2006; Mohan et al., 2006; Stratiki et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2007; Mihatsch et al., 2010; Dilli et al., 2015; Costeloe et al., 2016; Hays et al., 2016; Totsu et al., 2018; Oshiro et al., 2019; Agrawal et al., 2020 |
| Lactobacillus spp. | 2,000 | 0.45 (0.28, 0.71) | Reuman et al., 1986; Millar et al., 1993; Dani et al., 2002; Manzoni et al., 2006, 2009; Chrzanowska-Liszewska et al., 2012; Akar et al., 2017; Indrio et al., 2017; Wejryd et al., 2019 |
| Bifidobacterium spp. Plus Lactobacillus spp. Plus Streptococcus spp. | 662 | 0.42 (0.22, 0.77) | Fernandez-Carrocera et al., 2013; Kanic et al., 2015 |
| Bifidobacterium spp. Plus Streptococcus spp. | 1,244 | 0.36 (0.19, 0.68) | Bin-Nun et al., 2005; Jacobs et al., 2013 |
| Saccharomyces spp | 621 | 0.82 (0.44, 1.50) | Costalos et al., 2003; Demirel et al., 2013; Serce et al., 2013; Zeber-Lubecka et al., 2016 |
| Bifidobacterium spp. Plus Lactobacillus spp. Plus Saccharomyces spp | 583 | 0.67 (0.28, 1.58) | Dutta et al., 2015; Shashidhar et al., 2017 |
| Bacillus spp. | 465 | 0.61 (0.23, 1.61) | Sari et al., 2011; Tewari et al., 2015 |
| Outcome 2: | |||
| Severe neurodevelopmental impairment | 1,518 | 1.03 (0.84, 1.26) | |
| Bifidobacterium spp. Plus Lactobacillus spp. | 269 | 1.27 (0.81, 1.98) | Chou et al., 2010 |
| Bifidobacterium spp. | 162 | 0.77 (0.34, 1.72) | Totsu et al., 2018 |
| Lactobacillus spp. | 249 | 1.01 (0.69, 1.48) | Akar et al., 2017 |
| Bacillus spp. | 174 | 1.09 (0.58, 2.07) | Sari et al., 2011 |
| Bifidobacterium spp. Plus Streptococcus spp. | 664 | 0.97 (0.69, 1.36) | Jacobs et al., 2013 |
*Effect size is based on Cochrane Database of systematic reviews (Sharif et al., 2020).