Anthelmintic resistance of injectable macrocyclic lactones in cattle: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The purpose of this work was to identify, critically assess, and summarize available data from primary research about the anthelmintic resistance of injectable macrocyclic lactones in cattle. Meta-analysis was performed to estimate the pooled Odds Ratio and 95% Confidence Intervals. Of the 1504 abstracts screened for eligibility, 80 were deemed relevant for full publication review. Thirteen publications were included in the qualitative synthesis and assessed for systematic bias. Only five studies were included in the quantitative analysis because they showed a low risk of producing biased results in all the parameters. The forest plot indicated four studies that discuss anthelmintic resistance (P<0.05), while only one study did not discuss anthelmintic resistance (P<0.05). The pooled estimate showed 0.59 (95% Confidence intervals: 0.08, 0.47) times higher odds for studies that report anthelmintic resistance than for studies reporting efficacious anthelmintic treatment, with significant and substantially low heterogeneity (I2=25%). Anthelmintic resistance to injectable macrocyclic lactones is a reality. There are need to improve methodological reporting in studies, which is a problem for investigations that involves systematic review and meta-analysis (SR-MA).