Trial [ref.]
|
N
|
Setting
|
Vitamin C
|
Length of mechanical ventilation (hours)
|
RoM
|
---|
Route
|
Dose (g/day)
|
Vitamin C
|
Control
| |
---|
| |
Mean
|
SD
|
Mean
|
SD
| |
---|
Bjordahl et al. [11]
|
185
|
Cardiac
|
po
|
2
|
28.8
|
19.2
|
33.6
|
24.0
|
0.86
|
Amini et al. [12]
|
137
|
Cardiac
|
po
|
3
|
7.3
|
6.0
|
6.7
|
4.3
|
1.10
|
Dehghani et al .[13]
|
100
|
Cardiac
|
po
|
1
|
13.4
|
2.0
|
15.4
|
14.3
|
0.87
|
Habib et al. [14]
|
100
|
Sepsis
|
iv
|
6
|
110
|
50
|
189
|
72
|
0.58
|
Safaei et al. [15]
|
58
|
Cardiac
|
iv
|
2
|
15.1
|
5.39
|
22.9
|
20.46
|
0.66
|
Ebade et al. [16]
|
40
|
Cardiac
|
iv
|
3
|
2.04
|
0.35
|
1.99
|
0.31
|
1.02
|
Tanaka et al. [17]
|
37
|
Burns
|
iv
|
90*
|
290
|
211
|
511
|
374
|
0.57
|
Zabet et al. [18]
|
28
|
Sepsis
|
iv
|
6*
|
36.6
|
16.1
|
46.8
|
10.1
|
0.78
|
Sadeghpour et al. [19]**
|
290
|
Cardiac
|
po
|
1
|
11.8
|
3.9
|
14.1
|
9.5
|
0.84
|
- The trials are listed by the number of patients (N). The mean age in the trials ranged from 42 to 64 years, with a median of 60 years. The proportion of males varied from 58% to 75%. Five trials were carried out in Iran [12, 13, 15, 18, 19], two in Egypt [14, 16], one in the USA [11], and one in Japan [17]. For detailed descriptions of the trials, see Additional file 1: Table S1. The Amini trial [12] results are modified as described previously [1]
- *Estimated vitamin C dose, see the “Methods” section
- **Sadeghpour et al. [19] recruited 500 participants but reported the results for just 290 participants [1]. Because of the high dropout rate (42%), we did not include this trial in our calculations, but we overlay the findings in Fig. 4
- iv intravenous, po per oral, RoM ratio of means [22]: e.g., for the Bjordahl trial [11], RoM = 0.86, based on 28.8/33.6, and RoM = 0.86 indicates that ventilation time in the vitamin C group was 14% shorter than in the placebo group