Oropharyngeal colostrum immunotherapy in premature newborns and neonatal mortality: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Abstract Objectives: to investigate the effect of oropharyngeal colostrum immunotherapy (OCI) on death incidence in preterm newborns. Methods: this is a systematic review with meta-analysis, a study protocol registered in PROSPERO. The databases used were: Lilacs, Pubmed, Web of Science, Portal Capes, Scopus, REBEC and Clinical Trial; and, included studies published from 2007 to 2024, without language limitations. Randomized clinical trials that used OCI in premature infants and had death as an outcome, were selected. The review stages consisted of: protocol production, registration, study eligibility, data extraction, study quality assessment, data synthesis and meta-analysis. The software used was: Rayyan and Stata 10.0. Results: 15 studies were included for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Regarding the assessment of global risk, the studies were considered to have a high risk of bias. In the quantitative analysis, the sample consisted of 1,497 premature infants; and, the meta-analytic measure showed a difference from the mean of RR=0.750 (95%CI=0.582-0.967), without evidence of heterogeneity between studies I2=0.0%; p=0.649 and positive trend in preventing the incidence of death in the intervention group compared to the control group. Conclusion: the meta-analytic measurement suggests a possible positive effect of OCI in reducing neonatal mortality in premature infants.