📃 Paper Title: Cranberries for preventing urinary tract infection
🧍 Author: Ruth G Jepson
🕒 Year: 2012
📚 Journal: Cochrane Databse of Systematic Reviews
🌎 Country: United Kingdom
ㅤContext to the study:
Can you summarise the current evidence regarding the effectiveness of cranberry products for urinary tract infection prevention?
ㅤ✅ Take-home message of study:
Cranberry products do not lead to a statistically significant decrease in UTI incidence. They are neither better nor worse than antibiotics for preventing UTI. As such, cranberry products are not recommended for the prevention of UTI.
ㅤ Systematic review and meta-analysis
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Study participants:
24 studies with a total of 4473 participants.
Inclusion criteria:
Study type: RCTs comparing cranberry juice (or derivatives) against placebo, no treatment, or any other treatment.
Participants; susceptible men, women, or children, rUTIs, elderly patients, LTUC/intermittent catheterisation, pregnant women, abnormality of the urinary tract, children with a first or subsequent UTI
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Key study outcomes:
Primary Outcomes:
Incidence of urinary tract infections (UTIs) confirmed by catheterised urine specimen, midstream urine specimen, or clean catch specimen
Secondary Outcomes:
Adherence to Therapy
Side Effects
Occurrence of symptomatic UTI risk ratio (cranberry vs placebo/no treatment):
Overall: 0.86 (95% CI, 0.71-1.04)
Women with rUTIs: 0.74 (0.42-1.31)
Elderly: 0.75 (0.39-1.44)
Pregnant women: 1.04 (0.97-1.17)
Children with UTIs: 0.48 (0.19-1.22)
Cancer patients: 1.15 (0.75-1.77)
Neuropathic bladder/spinal injury: 0.95 (0.75-1.2)
Occurrence of symptomatic UTI risk ratio (cranberry vs antibiotics):
Women: 1.31 (0.85-2.02)
Children: 0.69 (0.32-1.51)
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Study Limitations:
Attrition Bias: A considerable number of randomised participants were excluded from the outcome analysis, which employed an intention-to-treat (ITT) approach
Most studies had a small sample size, leading to reduced statistical power for detecting a clinically significant difference between treatment groups
Cranberry products, regardless of from i.e., juice or tablet, were analysed together as one intervention. There was no delineation between cranberry juice and other forms.
Proanthocyanidins (PAC), ie the "active ingredient" in cranberry, content in capsules and tablets not standardised and not reported in several studies.
Moderate study heterogeneity overall (I2 = 60%).
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