Efficacy and Safety of Different Dosages of Praziquantel for the Treatment of Schistosoma Japonicum: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND Praziquantel, an antischistosomal compound, is used as first-line drug for chemotherapy of Schistosoma japonicum since 1984. In this article, we conducted a systematic review and mete-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of different dosages of praziquantel (PZQ) for treatment of Schistosoma japonicum. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION A number of six articles published in peer-reviewed journals before December 2012 were selected for analysis after searching the following literature databases: PubMed/Medline, the Chinese WanFang Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (1994-2012.12), and the Chinese Biomedical Literature (1978-2012.12). RESULTS The meta-analyses showed that there is no statistically significant difference of the negative rate on the egg using 40 mg/kg compared to 60 mg/kg PZQ for S. japonicum treatment (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.46 1.35; P < 0.39). The meta-analysis showed that there is no statistically significant difference of the side effects using 30 mg/kg compared with 40 mg/kg (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.68 1.38; P = 0.87), 40 mg/kg compared with 60 mg/kg (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.46 1.35; P = 0.39) and 50 mg/kg compared with 60 mg/kg (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.56 1.42; P = 0.63). CONCLUSIONS According to the results, there is no statistically significant difference in different doses of PZQ for treating S. japonicum.