| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4318885 | Brain Research Bulletin | 2013 | 7 Pages |
•We evaluate the effect of calcium channel blockers on TBI patients.•There was no difference between two groups for rates of mortality.•There was no difference between groups for the occurrence of unfavourable outcome.
The purpose of this systematic review was to evaluate and meta-analyse the current evidence for the use of calcium channel blockers (CCBs) in the treatment of acute traumatic brain injury (TBI) and traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage (tSAH). A systematic search of clinical trials.gov, Cochrane library databases, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Web of science search and WHO trial registry, plus hand-searching of grey literature, was undertaken in March 2013. Two reviewers independently extracted the data using a pre-defined data extraction form. RevMan 5 software was used to synthesise data and calculate the risk ratio (RR) based on event rates as well as the 95% confidence interval (CI). Finally, nine RCTs with a total of 2182 patients were included. Meta-analysis showed that there was no difference between CCBs and control groups for rates of mortality (n = 1337, 5 RCTs, RR 0.93 CI 0.77–1.12). In a subgroup tSAH analysis, the difference was not significant (n = 389, 2 RCTs, RR 0.73 CI 0.53–1.02). There were slightly fewer unfavourable outcomes in the treatment group, but the difference was not statistically significant (n = 2101, 8 RCTs, RR 0.90 CI 0.76–1.08). In the subgroup tSAH analysis, again, the difference did not reach statistical significance (n = 1074, 5 RCTs, RR 0.95 CI 0.73–1.24). It seems that larger, well-designed RCTs are necessary in order to ascertain any clinical benefit CCBs may or may not have for the treatment of acute TBI.
