Efficacy and safety of non-intravenous midazolam for the treatment of status epilepticus in children: a Meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of non-intravenous midazolam for treating status epilepticus (SE) in children. Methods Taking midazolam, status epilepticus and children both in Chinese and English as search terms, retrieve in databases such as PubMed, ScienceDirect, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP and Wanfang Data, assisted by manual searching and Google Scholar, in order to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about non-intravenous midazolam for treating SE in children from January 2000 to January 2015. Jadad Scale was used to evaluate the quality of literatures. Meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 software. Results There were a total of 258 records after preliminary searching, and 6 RCTs involving 766 episodes were finally included after excluding duplicate ones and those which did not meet the inclusion criteria. The results were as follows: 1) midazolam via intranasal administration was as effective as intravenous diazepam in achieving seizure control in children ( RD = -0.070, 95%CI: -0.200—0.060, P = 0.290). However, non-intravenous (intranasal or buccal) midazolam showed better effects on seizure control than rectal diazepam ( RD = 0.170, 95% CI: 0.030—0.320; P = 0.020). 2) The mean time from arrival at hospital to cessation was not significantly different between intranasal midazolam and intravenous diazepam ( SMD = -1.570, 95%CI: -3.280—0.140; P = 0.070). 3) There was no statistical difference between intranasal midazolam and intravenous diazepam for the time from giving drug to cessation ( SMD = 0.240, 95%CI: -0.110—0.590; P = 0.170). 4) There was no statistical difference on the occurrence rate of adverse drug reactions between non-intravenous midazolam and intravenous or non-intravenous diazepam ( RD = -0.010, 95% CI: -0.030—0.200; P = 0.500). Conclusions Non-intravenous midazolam is safe and effective in the treatment for status epilepticus in children. However, the conclusion still needs to be further vertified by more high-quality multi-center large-sample RCTs. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2016.02.004