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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Xylitol for preventing acute otitis media in children up to 12 years of age

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, August 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
6 news outlets
blogs
2 blogs
twitter
29 X users
facebook
11 Facebook pages
wikipedia
10 Wikipedia pages

Citations

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40 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
312 Mendeley
Title
Xylitol for preventing acute otitis media in children up to 12 years of age
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, August 2016
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd007095.pub3
Pubmed ID
Authors

Amir Azarpazhooh, Herenia P Lawrence, Prakeshkumar S Shah

Abstract

Acute otitis media (AOM) is the most common bacterial infection among young children in the United States. There are limitations and concerns over its treatment with antibiotics and surgery and so effective preventative measures are attractive. A potential preventative measure is xylitol, a natural sugar substitute that reduces the risk of dental decay. Xylitol can reduce the adherence of Streptococcus pneumoniae (S pneumoniae) and Haemophilus influenzae (H influenzae) to nasopharyngeal cells in vitro. This is an update of a review first published in 2011. To assess the efficacy and safety of xylitol to prevent AOM in children aged up to 12 years. We searched CENTRAL (to Issue 12, 2015), MEDLINE (1950 to January 2016), Embase (1974 to January 2016), CINAHL (1981 to January 2016), LILACS (1982 to January 2016), Web of Science (2011 to January 2016) and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (2000 to January 2016). Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-RCTs of children aged 12 years or younger where xylitol supplementation was compared with placebo or no treatment to prevent AOM. Two review authors independently selected trials from search results, assessed and rated study quality and extracted relevant data for inclusion in the review. We contacted trial authors to request missing data. We noted data on any adverse events of xylitol. We extracted data on relevant outcomes and estimated the effect size by calculating risk ratio (RR), risk difference (RD) and associated 95% confidence intervals (CI). We identified five clinical trials that involved 3405 children for inclusion. For this 2016 update, we identified one new trial for inclusion. This trial was systematically reviewed but due to several sources of heterogeneity, was not included in the meta-analysis. The remaining four trials were of adequate methodological quality. In three RCTs that involved a total of 1826 healthy Finnish children attending daycare, there is moderate quality evidence that xylitol (in any form) can reduce the risk of AOM from 30% to around 22% compared with the control group (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.65 to 0.88). Among the reasons for dropouts, there were no significant differences in abdominal discomfort and rash between the xylitol and the control groups. Xylitol was not effective in reducing AOM among healthy children during a respiratory infection (RR 1.13, 95% CI 0.83 to 1.53; moderate quality evidence) or among otitis-prone healthy children (RR 0.90, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.21; low-quality evidence). There is moderate quality evidence showing that the prophylactic administration of xylitol among healthy children attending daycare centres can reduce the occurrence of AOM. There is inconclusive evidence with regard to the efficacy of xylitol in preventing AOM among children with respiratory infection, or among otitis-prone children. The meta-analysis was limited because data came from a small number of studies, and most were from the same research group.

Timeline
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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 312 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Denmark 1 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Unknown 309 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 49 16%
Student > Bachelor 41 13%
Researcher 24 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 24 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 17 5%
Other 56 18%
Unknown 101 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 100 32%
Nursing and Health Professions 28 9%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 12 4%
Social Sciences 11 4%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 8 3%
Other 37 12%
Unknown 116 37%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 82. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 July 2024.
All research outputs
#556,724
of 26,552,644 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#920
of 13,242 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#10,775
of 386,332 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#18
of 250 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,552,644 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,242 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 34.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 386,332 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 250 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.