Figures & data
Figure 1 Flow diagram of the study selection process.
Figure 2 Risk of bias of the included randomized controlled trials (review authors’ judgments about each risk-of-bias item for each included study).
Note: +, low risk; −, high risk; ?, unclear risk.
Table 1 Characteristics of the included studies
Figure 3 Network of randomized controlled trials comparing different antifungal drugs for vulvovaginal candidiasis treatment.
Note: The thickness of the connecting lines represents the number of trials between each comparator, and the size of each node corresponds to the number of subjects who received the same pharmacological agent (sample size) (A: placebo; B: fluconazole; C: clotrimazole; D: miconazole; E: itraconazole; F: ketoconazole; G: econazole; H: butoconazole; I: terbinafine; J: terconazole).
Table 2 Summary ORs of antifungal drugs and heterogeneity of each direct comparison
Table 3 Network meta-analysis comparisons
Figure 4 Surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA), expressed as percentages, ranking the therapeutic effects and safety of treatments for vulvovaginal candidiasis.
Note: For efficacy and safety assessment, the pharmacological agent with the highest SUCRA value would be the most efficacious and safe treatment (A: placebo; B: fluconazole; C: clotrimazole; D: miconazole; E: itraconazole; F: ketoconazole; G: econazole; H: butoconazole; I: terbinafine; J: terconazole).
Figure 5 Comparison-adjusted funnel plot for the network meta-analysis.
Notes: The red line suggests the null hypothesis that the study-specific effect sizes do not differ from the respective comparison-specific pooled effect estimates. Different colors represent different comparisons (A: placebo; B: fluconazole; C: clotrimazole; D: miconazole; E: itraconazole; F: ketoconazole; G: econazole; H: butoconazole; I: terbinafine; J: terconazole).
