The Role of Cranberry in Preventing Urinary Tract Infection in Children; a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction: Although effectiveness of cranberry for preventing urinary tract infection (UTI) has been reported in Iranian traditional medicine and recent studies there is still controversy in this regard. Therefore, the present study was designed with a meta-analytic approach aiming to evaluate the effect of prophylaxis prescription of cranberry in prevention of UTI in children. Methods: In this study, a thorough search was performed in Medline, Embase, Web of Sciences, Scopus and CINHAL databases by the end of August 2017. Using keywords related to urinary tract infection combined with words related to cranberry, search strategy was designed. The articles were summarized and finally, the role of cranberry extract consumption in decreasing the incidence of UTI was evaluated by reporting odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Results: In the end, 10 studies were included (414 cases in control group and 380 in cranberry extract treatment group). Analyses showed that prescription of cranberry significantly reduced the odds of UTI manifestation in children compared to placebo (OR=0.31; 95% CI: 0.21 to 0.46; p<0.0001). On the other hand, it was determined that effectiveness of cranberry in decreasing UTI manifestation was similar to antibiotic treatment (OR=0.75; 95% CI: 0.34 to 1.70; p=0.495). Conclusion In the present study, it was determined that prophylaxis prescription of cranberry extract leads to prevention of UTI manifestation in children and its effectiveness is similar to that of antibiotics.