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Review
. 2025;16(1):18-27.
doi: 10.5847/wjem.j.1920-8642.2025.018.

Effects of probiotic treatment on the prognosis of patients with sepsis: a systematic review

Chao Gong  1 , Shengyong Xu  1 , Youlong Pan  2 , Shigong Guo  3 , Joseph Harold Walline  4 , Xue Wang  5 , Xin Lu  1 , Shiyuan Yu  1 , Mubing Qin  1 , Huadong Zhu  1 , Yanxia Gao  6 , Yi Li  1
Affiliations
Review

Effects of probiotic treatment on the prognosis of patients with sepsis: a systematic review

Chao Gong et al. World J Emerg Med. 2025.

Abstract

Background: Sepsis, a common acute and critical disease, leads to 11 million deaths annually worldwide. Probiotics are living microorganisms that are beneficial to the host and may benefit sepsis outcomes, but their effects are still inconclusive. This study aimed to evaluate the overall effect of probiotics on the prognosis of patients with sepsis.

Data resources: We searched several sources for published/presented studies, including PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library and the US National Library of Medicine Clinical Trials Register (www.clinicaltrials.gov) updated through July 30, 2023, to identify all relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or observational studies that assessed the effectiveness of probiotics or synbiotics in patients with sepsis and reported mortality. We focused primarily on mortality during the study period and analyzed secondary outcomes, including 28-day mortality, in-intensive care unit (ICU) mortality and other outcomes.

Results: Data from 405 patients in five RCTs and 108 patients in one cohort study were included in the analysis. The overall quality of the studies was satisfactory, but clinical heterogeneity existed. All adult studies reported a tendency for probiotics to reduce the mortality of patients with sepsis, and most studies reported a decreasing trend in the incidence of infectious complications, length of ICU stay and duration of antibiotic use. There was only one RCT involving children.

Conclusion: Probiotics show promise for improving the prognosis of patients with sepsis, including reducing mortality and the incidence of infectious complications, particularly in adult patients. Despite the limited number of studies, especially in children, these findings will be encouraging for clinical practice in the treatment of sepsis and suggest that gut microbiota-targeted therapy may improve the prognosis of patients with sepsis.

Keywords: Gut microbiota; Mortality; Probiotics; Sepsis; Synbiotics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart showing the reference search of the articles included in the systematic review. RCTs: randomized controlled trials
Figure 2
Figure 2
Risk of bias of the five RCTs (A) and one cohort study (B) included in this systematic review. RCTs: randomized controlled trials.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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