efficacy and safety of different dosages of praziquantel for the treatment of schistosoma japonicum: a systematic review and meta-analysis

background praziquantel, an antischistosomal compound, is used as first-line drug for chemotherapy of schistosoma japonicum since 1984. in this article, we conducted a systematic review and mete-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of different dosages of praziquantel (pzq) for treatment of schistosoma japonicum. evidence acquisition: a number of six articles published in peer-reviewed journals before december 2012 were selected for analysis after searching the following literature databases: pubmed/medline, the chinese wanfang literature database, china national knowledge infrastructure (1994-2012.12), and the chinese biomedical literature (1978-2012.12). results the meta-analyses showed that there is no statistically significant difference of the negative rate on the egg using 40 mg/kg compared to 60 mg/kg pzq for s. japonicum treatment (rr 0.79, 95% ci 0.46 1.35; p < 0.39). the meta-analysis showed that there is no statistically significant difference of the side effects using 30 mg/kg compared with 40 mg/kg (rr 0.97, 95% ci 0.68 1.38; p = 0.87), 40 mg/kg compared with 60 mg/kg (rr 0.79, 95% ci 0.46 1.35; p = 0.39) and 50 mg/kg compared with 60 mg/kg (rr 0.89, 95% ci 0.56 1.42; p = 0.63). conclusions according to the results, there is no statistically significant difference in different doses of pzq for treating s. japonicum.