Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Corticosteroids for Pediatric Orbital Cellulitis

A systematic review and meta-analysis aggregating data from six studies involving 11,803 pediatric patients hospitalized with orbital cellulitis. The research, authored by Emily S. Acker and published on figshare in April 2026, compares outcomes for adjunctive corticosteroid plus antibiotic therapy versus antibiotics alone. It reports pooled results for hospital length of stay, surgical intervention, PICU admission, and 30-day readmission.

Use Cases

• Evaluating the association between corticosteroid use and hospital length of stay based on the reported mean difference.
• Assessing risks of surgical intervention based on the reported relative risk (RR 2.08).
• Analyzing risks of pediatric intensive care unit admission based on the reported relative risk (RR 1.82).
• Investigating 30-day readmission rates based on the reported relative risk (RR 2.53).
• Examining study design and evidence certainty in pediatric clinical research based on the inclusion of randomized and observational studies.

Strengths

• Aggregates data from 11,803 pediatric patients across six studies, providing a substantial sample size.
• Follows PRISMA guidelines for systematic review and meta-analysis methodology.
• Reports specific quantitative outcomes with confidence intervals (e.g., mean difference -0.43 days, RR 2.08 for surgery).
• Includes a PROSPERO registration ID (CRD420251102999) for protocol transparency.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 84.1 KB DOCX document; the underlying tabular data used for the meta-analysis is not directly provided.
• The certainty of evidence is described as low to moderate, largely due to the observational nature of most included studies.
• Column-level documentation for any underlying data is absent; field semantics must be inferred from the manuscript.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Emily S. Acker.

Collection Method

PRISMA-compliant systematic review and meta-analysis pooling data from eligible studies using random- or fixed-effects models.

Time Range

The review includes studies published up to the point of analysis; the specific temporal coverage of the included studies is not stated.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 05:23:34

Geography

The geographic scope of the included studies is not specified in the provided description.