| Objective: To assess the benefits and harms of chest physiotherapy for pneumonia in adults.Methods: Cochrane systematic review of all relevant randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trials of chest physiotherapy for pneumonia in adults were performed. Clinical trials were searched in databases of CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CBMdisc, The National Research Register, PEDro and from the references of all included trials. The selection of studies, data extraction and assessment of quality were performed independently by two reviewers. The following outcomes were assessed: mortality, cure rate, duration of hospital stay, duration of fever, healing time, improvement rate of X-ray of pulmonary infiltrate, duration of antibiotic therapy, duration of sputum production and quantity of sputum, duration of leukocytosis and leukocyte count.Results: Six randomized clinical trials selected from primary forty-eight articles in the world including 423 patients met the inclusion criteria. The quality of all included trials wasn't high level. In the all six trials, the normal therapies were used in control groups and CPTs were used combined with normal therapies in treatment groups, of which, two were about CCPT; two were about OMT; one was about ACBT; one was about PEP. The results of Meta-analysis indicated: CPT is not better than no-CPT in terms of mortality, cure rate, healing time, improvement of X-ray of pulmonary infiltrate, duration of sputum production and quantity of sputum; OMT can shorten duration of hospital stay and duration of IV and all antibiotic therapy, and can make the level of leukocyte higher; CCPT is not better than no-CPT according to all of the outcomes, and can contrarily prolong the duration of hospital stay and fever; PEP can shorten the duration of hospital stay and fever; ACBT has no effect on all of the outcomes.Conclusions: Affirmatory assessment can't be made about the effectiveness and safety of CPT for pneumonia in adults according to the limited existing trials. |
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