Dataset Information

Chinese herbal medicines for the treatment of type A H1N1 influenza: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Chinese herbs are thought to be effective for type A H1N1 influenza. Series of Chinese herbs have been authorized recommended by the Chinese government, and until now a number of clinical trials of Chinese herbs for H1N1 influenza have been conducted. However, there is no critically appraised evidence such as systematic reviews or meta-analyses on potential benefits and harms of medicinal herbs for H1N1 influenza to justify their clinical use and their recommendation. METHODS AND FINDINGS:CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CBM, CNKI, VIP, China Important Conference Papers Database, China Dissertation Database, and online clinical trial registry websites were searched for published and unpublished randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Chinese herbs for H1N1 influenza till 31 August, 2011. A total of 26 RCTs were identified and reviewed. Most of the RCTs were of high risk of bias with flawed study design and poor methodological quality. The combination of several Chinese herbal medicines with or without oseltamivir demonstrated positive effect on fever resolution, relief of symptoms, and global effectiveness rate compared to oseltamivir alone. However, only one herbal medicine showed positive effect on viral shedding. Most of the trials did not report adverse events, and the safety of herbal medicines is still uncertain. CONCLUSIONS:Some Chinese herbal medicines demonstrated potential positive effect for 2009 type A H1N1 influenza; however, due to the lack of placebo controlled trial and lack of repeated test of the intervention, we could not draw confirmative conclusions on the beneficial effect of Chinese herbs for H1N1 influenza. More rigorous trials are warranted to support their clinical use.

SUBMITTER: Chen W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3229517 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Chinese herbal medicines for the treatment of type A H1N1 influenza: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Chen Wei W Lim Chi Eung Danforn CE Kang Hong-Jun HJ Liu Jianping J

PloS one 20111202 12

<h4>Background</h4>Chinese herbs are thought to be effective for type A H1N1 influenza. Series of Chinese herbs have been authorized recommended by the Chinese government, and until now a number of clinical trials of Chinese herbs for H1N1 influenza have been conducted. However, there is no critically appraised evidence such as systematic reviews or meta-analyses on potential benefits and harms of medicinal herbs for H1N1 influenza to justify their clinical use and their recommendation.<h4>Metho ...[more]

PMID: 22164232

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundIdiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a major global health problem. The prevalence of the disease appears to be increasing. There is no curative therapy for IPF except lung transplantation. Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) are showing promise for treatment of IPF. However, their effectiveness and safety are still unclear and deserve further investigation. The aim of this systematic review is to access the efficacy and safety of CHMs in treating IPF.MethodsThe protocol of this review is registered at PROSPERO. We searched seven main databases for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on CHMs for IPF from their inception to June 4, 2018. The methodological quality of RCTs was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. All trials included were analyzed according to the criteria of the Cochrane Handbook. Review Manager 5.3, R-3.5.2 software, and Grade pro GDT web solution were used for data synthesis and analysis.ResultsThirteen randomized clinical trials enrolling 733 patients were included. All trials included had clear outcome indicators. The methodological quality of included trials was generally "poor." Few trials reported methods of randomization. One trial on Xuefu-zhuyu capsule assessed rate of acute exacerbation and mortality after treatment for 72 weeks and found no statistically significant difference between two groups. This meta-analysis demonstrated a significant improvement in QOL of IPF patients when CHMs was applied or combined with conventional medicine treatment. 6MWT was significantly improved in IPF patients after using CHMs or combined with conventional medicine treatment. CHMs treatment also had a certain improvement in TLC and DLCO, but the effect on FVC was not significant. Besides, CHMs failed to provide benefits in terms of PaO2. The reported adverse events were not obvious and severe.ConclusionsSome CHMs seem effective and safe as alternative remedies for patients with IPF, suggesting that further study of CHMs in the treatment of IPF is warranted. Although this systematic review suggests that CHMs may have positive effect on quality of life, 6-minute walk test distance, and lung function (TLC, DLOC%) and seem to be relatively safe during the course of treatment, the results must be treated with great caution because of the methodological flaws of the included trials. Long-term and high-quality trials are needed in the future to provide clear evidence for the use of CHMs.

Project description:BackgroundWhether the addition of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in routine western medicines for post-stroke depression yields additional therapeutic effects still remains to be controversial. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of combination of CHM with routine western medicines versus routine western medicines alone in patients with post-stroke depression (PSD).MethodsElectronic databases such as PubMed, EmBase, Cochrane library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure were systematically searched from inception till October 2019. Studies designed as randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and that investigated the therapeutic effects of CHM plus routine western medicines (CHM group) versus routine western medicines alone (control group) in PSD patients were eligible. The relative risk (RR) and weighted mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to assess the categories and continuous data using random-effects model. Software STATA was applied to perform statistical analysis (Version 10.0; StataCorp, TX,).ResultsA total of 18 RCTs involving a total of 1,367 PSD patients were selected for final analysis. The effective rate in CHM group was significantly higher than that in control group (RR: 1.18; 95%CI: 1.12-1.24; P < .001). Moreover, patients in CHM group showed association with lower Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (WMD: -3.17; 95%CI: -4.12 to -2.22; P < .001) and Scandinavian Stroke Scale (WMD: -3.84; 95%CI: -5.73 to -1.96; P < .001) than those in control group. Furthermore, patients in CHM were associated with high level of Barthel Index than those in control group (WMD: 11.06; 95%CI: 4.01 to 18.10; P = .002). Finally, patients in CHM group had lower risk of gastrointestinal (RR: 0.49; 95%CI: 0.31-0.77; P = .002) and neurological (RR: 0.50; 95%CI: 0.33-0.75; P = .001) adverse events than those in control group.ConclusionsThe study findings revealed that addition of CHM to routine therapies could improve the therapeutic effects and reduce gastrointestinal or neurological adverse events.

Project description:BACKGROUND: The studies on the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicines (CHM) in treating liver fibrosis (LF) were not consistent. This study aims to systematically review the effectiveness of CHM on treating LF patients. METHODS: Databases including MEDLINE, AMED, EMBASE, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, TCMOnline, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and Chinese Medical Current Contents were searched up to March 2011. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving LF patients receiving CHM, Western medicine, combined CHM and Western medicine compared with placebo, Western medicine or no intervention were included. LF markers including serum hyaluronic acid (HA), laminin (LN), procollagen type III (PC-III), type IV collagen (IV-C), matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase (TIMP) were measured as primary outcomes. Liver biochemistry, including alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartarte aminotransferase (AST), and improvement of related clinical symptoms were measured as secondary outcomes. Risk of bias of allocation sequence, allocation concealment, blinding, incomplete outcome data, selective outcome reporting, and other biases were assessed. RESULTS: Twenty-three RCTs with 2123 participants were analyzed in subgroups of types of comparison and study quality. Fifteen studies were graded as good quality. CHM alone and combined with Western medicine showed significant improvements in HA, LN, PC-III and IV-C compared with Western medicine alone. However, there were no significant differences observed between CHM and placebo treatments. CONCLUSION: The current inconclusive results in determining the effectiveness of CHM treatment on LF, due to the poor methodological quality and high heterogeneity of the studies, suggests that large RCTs using standardized Chinese medicine syndrome diagnosis and CHM formulae with longer follow-up are required for further evaluation.

Dataset Information

Chinese herbal medicines for the treatment of type A H1N1 influenza: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Publications

Chinese herbal medicines for the treatment of type A H1N1 influenza: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets