The certainty of the evidence is downgraded by study quality (high or unclear risk of allocation concealment, blinding, and selective reporting in most trials).
A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 23 studies with a total of 2212 subjects. Included studies were small (<100 participants). Six studies compared antifungal treatment with placebo (n=607); 4 studies compared oral versus topical antifungals (n=543); 2 studies compared different dosing regimens for antifungals (n=100); 3 studies compared complementary medicine with antifungals (n=354). Compared with placebo or no treatment, oral and topical drug treatments (eg. azoles and nystatin) showed a reduction in clinical recurrence at 6 months (RR 0.36, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.63; number needed to treat (NNTB) 2; 6 trials, n=607; I² = 82%; low-certainty evidence) and 12 months (RR 0.80, 95% CI 0.72 to 0.89; NNTB=6; 6 trials, n=585; I² = 21%; low-certainty evidence). There were no clear difference between different treatment options (oral vs topical treatment, different doses, or duration). Adverse events were scarce across both treatment and control groups.
Date of latest search: 2022-02-22
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