Comparison of intensive versus conventional insulin therapy in traumatic brain injury: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

ABSTRACT

Objective: To compare intensive insulin therapy (IIT) and conventional insulin therapy (CIT) on clinical outcomes of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, ISI Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were systematically searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing IIT to CIT in patients with TBI. Study-level characteristics, intensive care unit (ICU) events, and long-term functional outcomes were extracted from the articles. Meta-analysis was performed with random-effect models.

Results: Seven RCTs comprising 1070 patients were included. Although IIT was associated with better neurologic outcome (GOS > 3) (RR=0.87, 95% CI=0.78-0.97; P=0.01; I²=0%), sensitivity analysis revealed that one study influenced this overall estimate (RR=0.90, 95% CI=0.80–1.01, P=0.07; I²=0%). IIT was strongly associated with higher risk of hypoglycaemia (RR=5.79, 95% CI=3.27–10.26, P<0.01; I²=38%). IIT and CIT did not differ in terms of early or late mortality (RR=0.96, 95% CI=0.79–1.17, P=0.7; I²=0%), infection rate (RR=0.82, 95% CI=0.59–1.14, P=0.23; I²=68%), or ICU length of stay (SMD= –0.14, 95% CI=–0.35 to 0.07, P=0.18; I²=45%0.)

Conclusions: IIT did not improve long-term neurologic outcome, mortality, or infection rate and was associated with increased risk of hypoglycaemia. Additional well-designed RCTs with defined TBI subgroups should be performed to generate more powerful conclusions.

KEYWORDS:

• Traumatic brain injury
• insulin therapy
• outcomes

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be access on the publisher’s website.

Acknowledgments

We thank Claire Levine from the Johns Hopkins University for her valuable contribution editing the manuscript.

Declaration of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.