CRD summary: This review assessed eosinophilic oesophagitis, including the efficacy of five different therapies, in adults. The authors reported that one trial with corticosteroids before bougienage may reduce active inflammation and the complication rate. However, the authors' findings should be not be relied upon, as this was a very poorly reported review that included a large number of very small, poor-quality studies.

[The interventions included in the review were classified into five groups: bougienage (push dilators), proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs), systemic corticosteroids, inhaled corticosteroids and monteluclast. Specific details of the drugs and treatment regimens were not reported. ]
CRD commentary: This was a broad systematic review covering a number of areas including therapeutic efficacy. Reporting of the review methods and data was poor. The literature search was also quite limited as it only included publications in English. There appears to have been no assessment of study quality and there were almost no details of the types of study designs included in the review. From the very brief descriptions given in the text, it would appear that most, if not all, of the studies were uncontrolled and therefore of poorer quality.

The lack of study details and data make it difficult to assess the level of heterogeneity between the studies or even how reliable the individual results are likely to be. The authors highlighted in their discussion that the majority of the studies had very small sample sizes, which was likely to affect the robustness of their findings. Overall, this is a poorly reported review based on what appears to be poor-quality data, so the authors' findings should be treated with caution.