LAUSR

Background Swallowed topical steroids are a mainstay of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) drug therapy, studies showed a good histologic response, while with a great discrepancy in clinical and endoscopic improvement. We conducted this meta-analysis to investigate the efficacy of topical steroids in EoE in histological response, clinical and endoscopic improvement. Methods Several databases were searched from inception to 1st August 2019 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing topical steroids with placebo for EoE in short-term. The outcomes of interest mainly included basic characteristics of the studies, histologic, clinical, endoscopic response rate and adverse events. Inconsistency was quantified using I2 statistics. Results Nine studies were eventually selected for the final analysis. The meta-analysis showed that topical steroids were effective in inducing histologic response compared with placebo both for complete response (OR 35.82, 95%CI 14.98–85.64, P Conclusions Topical steroids were effective in inducing a histological, clinical and endoscopic response in short-term, and the adverse events were almost tolerable. However, we should interpret the result of clinical and endoscopic response with caution.