Efficacy of antifungal drugs in the treatment of vulvovaginal candidiasis: a Bayesian network meta-analysis

Efficacy of antifungal drugs in the treatment of vulvovaginal candidiasis: a Bayesian network meta-analysis Fen Qin,1,* Quan Wang,2,* Chunlian Zhang,1 Caiyun Fang,1 Liping Zhang,1 Hailin Chen,1 Mi Zhang,3 Fei Cheng3 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, Hubei, China; 2Department of Stomatology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, Hubei, China; 3Department of Cardiology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, Hubei, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: Antifungal drugs are used frequently in the treatment of vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), but have shown controversial results. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of different antifungal drugs in the treatment of VVC and to provide an evidence-based reference for clinical use.Methods: The published studies on the effectiveness of antifungal drugs in the treatment of VVC (up to April 2018) were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov. We sifted through the literature according to Patients, Interventions, Comparisons and Outcomes principle, extracted data on the basic characteristics of the study, and evaluated the quality of included studies. We used R software for statistical analysis.Results: In total, 41 randomized controlled trials were included in this meta-analysis. The relative risk of VVC associated with ten drugs, including placebo, fluconazole, clotrimazole, miconazole, itraconazole, ketoconazole, econazole, butoconazole, terbinafine, and terconazole, was analyzed. The following drugs appeared to show more efficacy than placebo in the treated patients: fluconazole (OR