Objective: To evaluate the effect of preventing and treatment of pharmaceuticals on intensive care unit-acquired weakness (ICU-AW) by systematic review.
Methods: The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) concerning pharmaceutical prevention and treatment about ICU-AW in SinoMed, CNKI, Wanfang data, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, EMbase, and other sources were searched from their foundation to May 30th, 2019. The patients in the intervention group were treated with drugs to prevent or treat ICU-AW; and those in control group were treated with other rehabilitation methods. Data searching, extracting and quality evaluation were assessed by two reviewers independently. Stata 12.0 software was then used for Meta-analysis. Only descriptive analysis was conducted when only one study was enrolled.
Results: A total of 11 RCTs were enrolled with 1 865 patients in the intervention group and 1 894 in the control group. The results of quality evaluation showed that 4 studies were A-level and 7 studies were B-level, indicating that the overall quality of the enrolled literature was high. Meta-analysis showed that intensive insulin therapy could prevent ICU-AW [relative risk (RR) = 0.761, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was 0.662-0.876, P = 0.000], but reduced phenylalanine loss (nmol×100 mL-1×min-1: -3±3 vs. -11±3, P < 0.05) and glutamine intake (nmol×100 mL-1×min-1: -97±22 vs. -51±13, P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the prevention and treatment of ICU-AW between other drugs (including growth hormone, glutamine, dexmedetomidine, neostigmine, oxandrolone, and intravenous immunoglobulin) and control group.
Conclusions: Intensive insulin therapy can prevent ICU-AW, but the risk of hypoglycemia will increase. Other drugs including growth hormone, glutamine, dexmedetomidine, neostigmine, oxandrolone, and intravenous immunoglobulin have no obvious advantages in the prevention and treatment of ICU-AW, so no drug has been recommended to prevent and treat ICU-AW.