Ivermectin for onchocercal eye disease (river blindness) (Review)

Whitworth 1991 (Continued)
Outcomes Incidence of blindness; Incidence of visual impairment; Skin microfilarial load (mf/mg)
(geometric mean)**; Prevalence of microfilaria in cornea, anterior chamber; Prevalence
of punctate keratitis, sclerosing keratitis, iritis, Chorioretinitis, retinal pigment epithelial
atrophy, adverse drug reactions.
Notes Adverse reactions reported include: cutaneous reactions; musculoskeletal reactions; fever;
swellings of the face, joints or limbs; headache; dizziness; lymphadenopathy; eye reactions;
nodule pain.
Risk of bias
Item Authors’ judgement Description
Adequate sequence generation? Unclear “All inhabitants of 6 study villages in southern
Sierra-Leone were allocated at random
to receive either ivermectin (150µg/kg) or
placebo throughout the trial.” Whitworth et
al Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical
Medicine and Hygiene 1991, page 501
materials and methods.
Allocation concealment? Unclear Control group received placebo but no information
about allocation and how it was
concealed.
Blinding?
All outcomes
Incomplete outcome data addressed?
All outcomes
Yes The control group received placebo and
even though there was no information
about allocation and how it was concealed
we have assumed that people were unaware
to which group they had been allocated.
Unclear The eye study aimed to examine 312 people
who had received four doses of placebo and
331 who had received four doses of ivermectin.
272 (87%) of the placebo cohort
and 296 (89%) of the ivermectin cohort
were examined. However original numbers
treated were much higher ranging from 812
to 870 in the ivermectin group and 813 to
875 in the placebo group.
Free of selective reporting? Unclear Unclear see Table 3
* Number randomised to treatment or placebo not clearly specified. The value given is the number of individuals initially registered
and randomised.
** Standard deviation not reported therefore RevMan analysis for these outcome measures not possible.
Ivermectin for onchocercal eye disease (river blindness) (Review)
Copyright © 2009 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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