Abstract: Objective: To evaluate the effect of oral immune therapy in premature infants. Methods: We searched Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP for RCTs about oral immune therapy in premature infants. We selected studies according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data and assessed their quality. Data were analyzed by RevMan 5.3. Results: 10 studies with 623 premature infants were included. The results showed that the incidence rates of hospital infection [RR=0.35, 95% CI (0.17, 0.73), P=0.005], sepsis [RR=0.54, 95% CI (0.37, 0.77), P=0.0007], and intolerance of enteral feedings [RR=0.46, 95% CI (0.28, 0.75), P=0.002] were all significantly different between the sterile or normal saline group and the colostrum group. The days starting oral feeding [MD=-2.57, 95% CI (-4.84, -0.29), P=0.03] and the days reaching full enteral feeding [MD=-4.99, 95% CI (-8.54, -1.45), P=0.006] were both significantly different, too. However, there were no significant difference in the incidence rate of necrotizing enterocolitis [RR=0.54, 95% CI (0.22, 1.33), P=0.18] between these two groups. Conclusion: Oral immune therapy reduced the incidence rate of hospital infection, sepsis and intolerance of enteral feedings, and shorted the days starting oral feeding and the days reaching full enteral feeding. But it did not improve the incidence rate of necrotizing enterocolitis. Due to the insufficiency of studies included, high-quality studies with large sample size are needed to further evaluate the effect of oral immune therapy.

Key words: oral immune therapy; premature infant; intervention studies