Efficacy and safety of pharmacological treatments for Lyme neuroborreliosis in children: a systematic review

BMC Neurology

Table 3 GRADE evidence table for the comparison penicillin vs. ceftriaxone for children with Lyme neuroborreliosis

Quality assessment						№ of patients		Effect	Quality
№ of studies	Study design	Risk of bias	Inconsistency	Indirectness	Imprecision	Penicillin	Ceftriaxone	Relative (95 % CI)	Quality
Neurological symptoms at last reported time point
1	randomised trials	serious^a	not serious	not serious	very serious^b	0/11 (0.0 %)	0/12 (0.0 %)	not estimable	⨁◯◯◯ VERY LOW
Neurological symptoms at last reported time point
2	observational studies	very serious^c	not serious	serious^d	serious^e	2/55 (3.6 %)	4/28 (14.3 %)	not pooled	⨁◯◯◯ VERY LOW

^ano blinding, randomisation and allocation concealment not stated appropriately, selective outcomes reporting cannot be excluded
^bvery small sample size, optimal information size not met
^cbaseline confounding, selected patients, lack of blinding, interventions insufficiently described
^dheterogeneous interventions, interventions not clearly described
^esmall sample size, optimal information size not met

ISSN: 1471-2377