Effect of zinc treatment on clinical outcomes in patients with liver cirrhosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 1 Characteristics of studies included in systematic review, n (%)

	Bresci et al[19]	Vilar Gomez et al[18]	Hayashi et al[20]	Takuma et al[17]
Country	Italy	Cuba	Japan	Japan
Number of participants	90	100	40	79
%male (control group)	23	18	13	40
%male (intervention group)	33	22	10
Age (control group)	49	56.6 (8.4)	65.1 (11.3)	66.5 (7.4)
Age (intervention group)	51	58.5 (8.9)	66.0 (9.9)	66.5 (5.7)
Inclusion criteria	Cirrhosis (any aetiology) with encephalopathy	Decompensated HCV cirrhosis	Cirrhosis of any aetiology	Cirrhosis (any aetiology) with encephalopathy
MELD (control group)	N/A	13.3 (4.7)	N/A	11.8 (3.2)
MELD (intervention group)	N/A	12.5 (3.7)	N/A	11.8 (3.2)
Control group treatment	Placebo	Placebo	BCAAs	BCAAs
Intervention group treatment	Zinc acetate	Viusid	Zinc sulfate + BCAAs	Polaprezinc + BCAAs
Zinc preparation and dosage	Zinc acetate 600 mg/d	Viusid 3 tablets/d	Zinc sulfate 200-600 mg/d	Polaprezinc
Elemental Zinc dosage (mg Zn/d)	214	3.4	45-136	51
Duration of intervention	6 mo	96 wk	5-6 mo	6 mo
Primary Outcome	Hepatic encephalopathy assessments	Overall survival rate	Change in biochemistry	Hepatic encephalopathy assessments
Results	No significant improvement in hepatic encephalopathy assessments	Significant improvement in overall survival, time to disease progression and cumulative incidence of HCV	Significant improvement in blood ammonia levels	Significant improvement in the physical component scale, but not the mental component scale
Duration of follow up	1 yr	96 wk	5-6 mo	6 mo

Continuous variables expressed as mean ± SD where available. BCAA: Branched chain amino acid; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; MELD: Model for end-stage liver disease; Zn: Zinc; N/A: Not applicable.