Systematic review and meta-analysis of Xingnaojing treatment for sepsis associated encephalopathy

Abstract

Objective: Xingnaojing injection (XNJ) is a popular medicine derived from traditional Chinese patent medicine and is frequently used to treat brain diseases. The purpose of this study is to systematically evaluate the efficacy of XNJ in the treatment of sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE). Methods: An extensive research was performed on XNJ for treating SAE within eight databases up to April 2022. The Cochrane standards are adopted for study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and meta-analysis, and RevMan5.4 was utilized for meta-analysis. Results: There were 9 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 689 subjects in this review. According to the meta-analysis, combining XNJ with conventional treatment was more efficient in terms of total efficacy (RR = 1.28; 95% CI, 1.18–1.39; P < 0.00001) and lower level of PCT (MD = −20.14; 95% CI, −21.35 to −18.92; P < 0.00001) than conventional treatment alone. There were no reports of adverse drug reactions in any of the studies. Conclusion: We believe that combining XNJ with conventional treatments could be beneficial in the treatment of SAE. There are currently a number of methodological issues in the studies. Therefore, high-quality, large-scale RCTs are definitely required.

Keywords

• Meta-analysis
• Xingnaojing
• Sepsis associated encephalopathy
• Treatment