Figure 3
Effects of pharmacodynamic-based antibiotic dosing on clinical failure, defined as lack of clinical cure or improvement, grouped by RCT versus cohort studies. Individual study RR with 95% CIs are shown as squares with lines, and pooled RRs with 95% CI, calculated by using random-effects models both overall and separately for each subgroup, are shown as diamonds. Z tests were used to test for subgroup differences. If clinical failure is defined only as lack of clinical cure, results were identical for the non-RCTs and similar for the RCTs (seven RCTs, 525 patients; RR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.70 to 0.99; P = 0.04; I2 = 11%) and overall (14 studies, 1,509 patients; RR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.52 to 0.88; P = 0.004; I2 = 70%). Weight refers to the weighting of each individual study to the overall pooled RR. CI, confidence interval; IV, inverse variance; RCT, randomized controlled trial; RR, relative risk.