Efficacy and safety of different dosages of praziquantel for the treatment of schistosoma japonicum : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract EN

Background : Praziquantel, an antischistosomal compound, is used as first-line drug for chemotherapy of Schistosoma japonicum since 1984.

In this article, we conducted a systematic review and mete-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of different dosages of praziquantel (PZQ) for treatment of Schistosoma japonicum.

Evidence Acquisition : A number of six articles published in peer-reviewed journals before December 2012 were selected for analysis after searching the following literature databases: PubMed / Medline, the Chinese WanFang Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (1994-2012.12), and the Chinese Biomedical Literature (1978-2012.12).

Results : The meta-analyses showed that there is no statistically significant difference of the negative rate on the egg using 40 mg / kg compared to 60 mg / kg PZQ for S.

japonicum treatment (RR 0.79, 95 % CI 0.46 1.35 ; P < 0.39).

The meta-analysis showed that there is no statistically significant difference of the side effects using 30 mg / kg compared with 40 mg / kg (RR 0.97, 95 % CI 0.68 1.38 ; P = 0.87), 40 mg / kg compared with 60 mg / kg (RR 0.79, 95 % CI 0.46 1.35 ; P = 0.39) and 50 mg / kg compared with 60 mg / kg (RR 0.89, 95 % CI 0.56 1.42; P = 0.63).

Conclusions : According to the results, there is no statistically significant difference in different doses of PZQ for treating S.

japonicum.