Are Shorter Courses of Corticosteroids as Effective as Longer Courses in Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease?

Authors included 8 randomized controlled trials comprising 582 patients for qualitative analysis from 417 citations retrieved from their initial literature search. Of these, 5 randomized controlled trials met criteria for meta-analysis. The 8 included studies were parallel-group randomized controlled trials comparing systemic corticosteroids for short or longer duration in hospital settings. Study size varied from 21 to 314 patients, mean age was 65 to 73 years, and most patients were men (58% to 94% of included patients).

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