Octreotide for primary moderate to severe acute pancreatitis: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Background/aims: To systematically evaluate the effect and safety of octreotide on primary moderate to severe acute pancreatitis.

Methodology: The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E), and Chinese Biomedicine Database (CBM) were searched in September 2011. Major outcomes contained mortality, incidence rate of complications, rate of surgical intervention, and length of hospital stay.

Results: Eleven randomized clinical trials with 720 participants were included and evaluated, only two of which had a high study quality and were combined in meta-analysis. The pool estimate of RR of mortality was 0.88 (95% CI: 0.53, 1.45) and that of incidence rate of complication was 1.08 (95% CI: 0.94, 1.26), both of which had no significant difference. The other two outcomes could not be combined for lack of enough data.

Conclusions: Present evidence does not approve octreotide's benefit in the major outcomes of moderate to severe acute pancreatitis and further randomized controlled trials with high quality and large sample size are required.