Objective: To evaluate whether teicoplanin could be an alternative to vancomycin for treatment of MRSA infection in Chinese population using a meta-analysis in randomized controlled trials. Methods: The following databases were searched: Chinese Biomedical Literature database (CBM), Chinese Journal Full-text database (CNKI), Wanfang database, Medline database, Ovid database and Cochrane Library. Articles published from 2002 to 2013 that studied teicoplanin in comparison to vancomycin in the treatment of MRSA infected patients were collected. Overall effects, publishing bias analysis and sensitivity analysis on clinical cure rate, microbiologic eradication rate and adverse events rate were performed by using Review Manager 5.2 and Stata 11.0 softwares. Results: Twelve articles met entry criteria. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding the clinical cure rate (risk ratio [RR], teicoplanin vs vancomycin, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.74 similar to 1.19; P = 0.60), microbiological cure rate (risk ratio [RR], teicoplanin vs vancomycin, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.91 similar to 1.07; P = 0.74) and adverse event rate (risk ratio [RR], teicoplanin vs vancomycin, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.40 similar to 1.84; P = 0.70). Conclusions: The meta-analysis results indicate that the two therapies are similar in both efficacy and safety, thus teicoplanin can act as an effective alternative to vancomycin for treating patients infected by MRSA.
