Copyright
©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Nov 8, 2016; 5(4): 383-390
Published online Nov 8, 2016. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v5.i4.383
Published online Nov 8, 2016. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v5.i4.383
Zinc supplementation as an adjunct to standard therapy in childhood nephrotic syndrome - a systematic review
Girish Chandra Bhatt, Shikha Jain, Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal 462020, India
Rashmi Ranjan Das, Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar 751019, India
Author contributions: Bhatt GC designed the research; Bhatt GC and Jain S wrote the paper; Bhatt GC and Das RR performed the research; Das RR analyzed the data and supervised the paper; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Data sharing statement: The technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset are available from the corresponding author at rrdas05@gmail.com.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Rashmi Ranjan Das, MD, Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, SIJUA, Bhubaneswar 751019, India. rrdas05@gmail.com
Telephone: +91-674-2472215 Fax: +91-674-2472215
Received: March 16, 2016
Peer-review started: March 18, 2016
First decision: May 19, 2016
Revised: June 30, 2016
Accepted: August 15, 2016
Article in press: August 16, 2016
Published online: November 8, 2016
Peer-review started: March 18, 2016
First decision: May 19, 2016
Revised: June 30, 2016
Accepted: August 15, 2016
Article in press: August 16, 2016
Published online: November 8, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: Relapses in nephrotic syndrome (NS) increase morbidity and mortality. Studies have shown that zinc deficiency is common in NS. Zinc deficiency might lead to down-regulation of T-helper 1 (Th1) cytokines, a relative T-helper 2 (Th2) bias, and an increased risk of infection. The later commonly associated with relapse in NS. Zinc supplementation restores Th1-Th2 imbalance and may decrease relapse. The primary aim of this review is to evaluate the efficacy of zinc in preventing relapses in childhood NS (steroid sensitive and steroid dependent/frequent relapsing). The secondary aim is to evaluate the safety of zinc supplementation in this regard.