To assess the effect of continuous monitor and control cuff pressure on the incidence of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) in the mechanical ventilation patients.

The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effect of the incidence of VAP in the mechanical ventilation patients undergoing continuous monitor and control cuff pressure (treatment group) or discontinuous monitor and control cuff pressure (control group) were conducted in PubMed, Medline, Embase, OVID, Cochrane, CNKI, CBM, VIP and Wanfang database from January 2006 to December 2015. Two reviewers independently screened articles according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the data and evaluated the quality of the included studies. The meta-analysis was performed using Revman 5.3.

Six studies involving 1 263 mechanical ventilation patients (654 patients in the treatment group and 609 patients in the control group) were included in the RCTs. The results of meta-analyses showed that the incidence of VAP in the treatment group was much lower than that in the control group [OR = 0.43, 95%CI (0.31, 0.60), Z = 5.53, P < 0.05]. However, there was no significant difference in ICU mortality between the two groups [OR = 1.02, 95%CI (0.71, 1.46), Z = 0.36, P > 0.05].

Continuous monitor and control cuff pressure can reduce the incidence of VAP in the mechanical ventilation patients, but had no significant effect on ICU mortality.