Effects of antiplatelet therapy on the mortality rate of patients with sepsis: A meta-analysis

Abnormal platelet activation plays an important role in the development of sepsis. The effect of antiplatelet drugs on the outcome of patients with sepsis remains unclear. This meta-analysis aimed to determine the effect of antiplatelet drugs on the prognosis of patients with sepsis. PubMed, Cochrane Library, CBM, and Embase were searched for all related articles published from inception to April 2018. The primary end point was mortality. Adjusted data were used and statistically analysed. Ten cohort studies were included. The total number of patients with sepsis was 689,897. Data showed that the use of antiplatelet drugs could effectively reduce the mortality of patients with sepsis (odds ratio (OR) = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.81–0.83, p