Safety and efficacy of fortified antibiotics and fluoroquinolones for the treatment of bacterial keratitis: A meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: To compare the safety and efficacy of fortified antibiotics and fluoroquinolones in the treatment of bacterial keratitis.

METHODS: PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wanfang database and VIP database were systematically searched for randomized controlled trials (RCT) of treatment of bacterial keratitis with fortified antibiotics and fluoroquinolones. Rev Man 5.3 software was used to analyze outcome index cure rate, time to cure, and adverse events in a meta-analysis.

RESULTS: After literature search and screening, 9 randomized controlled trials were included in this study. Compared with traditional fortified antibiotic therapy, fluoroquinolones show consistency in terms of cure rate and incidence of adverse events: cure rates (OR=0.99, 95% CI: 0.75, 1.30) and incidence of adverse events (OR=0.75, 95% CI: 0.48, 1.17). However, the time to cure for fluoroquinolones was shorter than that of fortified antibiotics (MD=0.96, 95% CI: 0.50, 1.41).

CONCLUSION: The cure rate and safety of fluoroquinolones are equivalent to those of fortified antibiotics, so it seems reasonable to use fluoroquinolones as the preferred treatment for bacterial keratitis.