Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and acetaminophen are widely used for common cold symptom relief. The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of acetaminophen and NSAIDs in common cold symptom relief using meta-analysis of randomized controlled trial.

We searched MEDLINE (PubMed), Cochrane, EMBASE, CINAHL, KMbase, KoreaMed, National Assembly Library, and Riss4u for studies released through June 2012. Two authors independently extracted the data. To assess the risk of bias, the Cochrane Collaborations risk of bias tool was used. The Review Manager ver. 5.1 (RevMan) was used for statistics.

We identified 5 studies. The relative benefit for participants with pain relief was 1.00 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.96 to 1.05) and I² = 0%. The existence of the heterogeneity between studies was not important in this study, thus subgroup analysis was not implemented. The relative benefit for participants with rhinorrhea was 1.02 (95% CI, 0.77 to 1.35) and I² = 0%, which also indicates the existence of heterogeneity was not important. The relative risk of adverse events was 1.14 (95% CI, 0.93 to 1.40), I² = 0%. There was no apparent asymmetry in the funnel plot.

There was no difference between NSAIDs and acetaminophen in common cold symptom relief.