Comparison of Mono- and Combination Antibiotic Therapy for the Treatment of Bacteraemia: A Cumulative Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies

It is currently unknown whether antibiotic monotherapy or combination therapy is a more effective treatment for patients with bacteraemia. The present study consists of a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies in associated studies. The treatment options of monotherapy and combination therapy have been compared, to determine which is more effective against bacteraemia. Several electronic bibliographic databases were systematically searched and clinical studies that compared combination therapy with monotherapy for bacteraemia were identified. Dersimonian and Laird's random-effects models were used to generate summary estimates of the effects and to assess their association according to different patient characteristics and research quality standards. A total of 17 studies were selected, 3 of which were prospective while the remaining 14 were retrospective. The studies involved a total of 2,504 patients. Significant differences between combination therapy and monotherapy treatment were not found when the data were combined (odds ratio (OR)=0.81, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.61-1.08; P=0.035). The results demonstrated strength in a number of stratification and sensitivity analyses. The variables used included study type, treatment quality score and survival rate of subgroup analysis. To conduct cumulative meta-analysis, the number of years and samples were calculated. The OR value and 95% CI were stable and demonstrated good change trend. According to the size of the sample order following accumulation, OR values and 95% CI (0.89, 0.76-1.04) exhibited a narrow range. Neither combination therapy or monotherapy exhibited significant effects on the mortality of patients with bacteraemia. Future research is required and should include large, well-designed prospective cohorts, and grouped clinical studies.