Objective  To assess the efficacy of ambroxol on acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome ( ALI/ARDS) .
Methods  The randomized controlled study involving ambroxol on ALI/ARDS were searched and identified from Cochrane Library, PubMed, China Academic Journals Full-text Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, WanFang Resource Database, and Chinese Journal Fulltext Database. The quality of the chosen randomized controlled studies was evaluated, and then the valid data was extracted for meta-analysis.
Results  Ten articles were included, all in Chinese, including 459 cases of
patients ( 233 cases in experimental group,226 cases in control group) , with baseline comparability between the various experiments. Systematic review showed that in ALI/ARDS patients, high-dose ambroxol was in favor to improve PaO2 [ WMD =12. 23, 95% ( 9. 62, 14. 84) , P  lt; 0. 0001] and PaO2 /FiO2 [ WMD = 32. 75,
95% ( 30. 00, 35. 51) , P  lt;0. 0001] , reduce lung injury score [ WMD = - 0. 49, 95% ( - 0. 66, - 0. 33) ,P  lt;0. 0001] , decrease the duration of mechanical ventilation [ WMD = - 2. 70, 95% ( - 3. 24, - 1. 12) ,P  lt;0. 0001] and the length of ICU stay [ WMD= - 2. 70, 95% ( - 3. 37, - 2. 04) , P  lt;0. 0001] , and lower mortality [ OR=0. 46,95%( 0. 22, 1. 00) , P = 0. 05] .
Conclusions  The existing clinical evidence shows that, compared with conventional therapy, high-dose ambroxol plus can significantly improve PaO2 , PaO2 /
FiO2 , lung injury score, duration of mechanical ventilation, length of ICU stay and mortality in ALI/ARDS patients. Due to the quality of research and the limitations of the study sample, there likely to exist a bias,and may affect the strength of result, so we expect more high-quality, large-scale randomized controlled clinical trial to verify.

Citation： LI Hui,XU Xiaofeng,QIU Shaoxiao. Efficacy of Ambroxol for Acute Lung Injury/Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Systematic Review. Chinese Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2012, 11(5): 459-464. doi: Copy