Objective To systematically assess the efficacy and safety of probiotics in prevention and treatment of bronchial asthma. Methods Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of probiotics in prevention/treatment of asthma compared with placebo were searched in PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, OVID and The Cochrane Library published before August 2011. The quality of the included RCTs was evaluated and the data were extracted by two assessors independently. Meta-analyses were performed with RevMan 5.1 software. Results Eleven RCTs on probiotics preventing asthma (n=3 656) and 5 RCTs on probiotics treating asthma (n=430) were identified. The Meta-analyses on preventing asthma showed that probiotics didn’t statistically decease the incidence of asthma (RR=0.76, 95%CI 0.47 to 1.22, P=0.25) and asthma-like wheezing (RR=0.92, 95%CI 0.62 to 1.39, P=0.71) compared with placebo. The Meta-analyses on treating asthma indicated that probiotics could prolong free episodes of asthma (RR=1.48, 95%CI 1.20 to 1.76, Plt;0.000 1) in comparison with placebo. No severe adverse events were found in all included studies. Conclusion The present evidence is not b enough to prove that probiotics is effective to prevent asthma, but it may prolong free episodes of asthma. Although it seems to have the effect on improving lung function, it fails to reduce the acute onset of asthma and has no have the advantage of improving immune function.
Objective Since 2009, assessment of asthma control in Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) includes current clinical control and future risk. " Current clinical control” is replaced by " symptom control” in GINA 2015, and lung function is excluded from assessment of current clinical control. This study was designed to investigate the agreement in current asthma control assessment between GINA 2009 and 2015, and to explore whether FEV1 monitoring plays an important role in this context. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among patients with stable asthma (n=138). The levels of asthma control were graded by GINA 2009 and GINA 2015, respectively. Demographic data, spirometry, exacerbations in the past 12 months, peripheral blood cells, induced sputum were collected. Kappa coefficient was used to measure the agreement of the two asthma control tools. Association of the asthma control levels using the two tools with the exacerbations in the past 12 months was examined by Spearman correlations. Additionally, associations of lung function with the exacerbations in the past 12 months were analyzed. Results Agreement in assessing current asthma control between GINA 2009 and 2015 was moderate (Kappa=0.595, P<0.001). Compared with GINA 2009, the patients with well-controlled asthma assessed by GINA 2015 had worse FEV1%pred [(89.9±12.9)% vs. (79.9±18.2)%, P=0.013], the partly controlled subjects assessed by GINA 2015 had worse asthma control scores in ACQ-6 score (0.8±0.7 vs. 1.1±0.7, P=0.028) and ACT score (20.7±2.5 vs. 19.4±2.5, P=0.007). Furthermore, asthma control levels assessed by either GINA 2015 or 2009 were related to exacerbations in the past 12 months and stronger relationship was presented in GINA 2015 (r=–0.268 for GINA 2015 vs. r=–0.212 for GINA 2009, respectively). In addition, there were no differences in cell counts in induced sputum or peripheral blood or IgE level in peripheral blood in patients with different asthma control levels assessing by GINA 2009 and 2015. Conclusions Our study indicates that it has a moderate agreement of assessing current asthma control between GINA 2015 and 2009. Compared with GINA 2009, absence of FEV1 monitoring from GINA 2015 would result in worse lung function in well-controlled asthma and worse asthma control scores in partly controlled asthma. Addition of FEV1 monitoring to GINA 2015 would weaken the relationship between current asthma control and future asthma outcomes, although it didn't reach statistical significance. Our study supports that GINA 2015 lacking lung function monitoring in current asthma control assessment is applicable in clinical practice.
ObjectiveTo understand the distribution of demographic sociological characteristics and co-morbidities among primiparous and multiparous pregnant women under the China's universal two-child policy, to provide baseline data for clinical high-risk management and medical resources allocation.MethodsWe included pregnant women from 24 hospitals in 16 provinces (municipality, autonomous region) of China and collected their demographic sociological characteristics and obstetrics information by questionnaires between September 19th, and November 20th, 2016. Then, we used descriptive analysis to present the distribution of demographic sociological characteristics and pregnancy co-morbidities among primiparous and multiparous women and compared differences between groups by t test or Chi-square test.ResultsAmong 12 403 investigated pregnant women, 8 268 (66.7%) were primiparous and 4 135 (33.3%) were multiparous, with highest proportion in East (931/2 008, 46.4%) and lowest in Northeast (385/2 179, 17.7%). Multiparous women, comparing to primiparous women, were more likely to be elderly than 35 years (accounting for 30.6% vs. 6.5%), lower educated with high school or below (29.7% vs. 16.9%), occupied in physical labor or unemployed (49.2% vs. 42.5%), non-local residents (12.7% vs. 10.5%), family annual income higher than 120 thousand yuan (41.3% vs. 33.3%), pre-pregnancy body mass index≥24 kg/m2 (13.6% vs. 9.9%), history of artificial abortions (44.9% vs. 24.0%), or pregnancies≥4 times (23.8% vs. 3.1%) and were less likely to receive assisted reproductive technology (2.3% vs. 4.7%). The most common co-morbidities were gynecology disease (5.5%), thyroid disease (5.4% in all women), blood system disease (5.0%), digestive system disease (4.2%) and hepatitis B infection (2.5%). Multiparous women, comparing to primiparous women, had higher proportions with blood system disease (5.7% vs. 4.7%), hepatitis B infection (3.1% vs. 2.2%) and chronic hypertension (0.6% vs. 0.2%), but lower proportions with thyroid diseases, polycystic ovary syndrome, and immune system diseases, whose distribution also showed regional differences.ConclusionThere existed distribution differences regarding demographic sociological characteristics and co-morbidities proportions between primiparous and multiparous women. Therefore, we should improve clinical risk management and medical resources allocation based on pregnant women’s baseline and gestational characteristics.