Efficacy of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine on ulcerative colitis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC), is a chronic non-specific inflammatory disease. Integrated Traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine (ITCMWM) therapy has been widely used on UC, but limited number of literatures analyzed the efficacy and safety of ITCMWM treatment. Aim of the study: This review directed attention towards the assessment of the curative effect and safety of ITCMWM in treating UC. Materials and methods: As per the protocol registered on PROSPERO (CRD42021233605), this systematic review was conducted. Data were retrieved from PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data (WAN FANG). Additionally, this meta-analysis comprised randomized controlled trials comparing ITCMWM vs. Western medicine (WM), and combined the risk ratio (RR). Ultimately, quality assessment of this study was dependent on two reviewers. Results: Totaling 3957 patients in 38 studies were included, which stochastically fell into ITCMWM group (1979 cases) and control group (1978 cases). Compared with the control subjects, UC patients receiving ITCMWM showed a significantly higher clinical effect (RR = 1.26, 95%CI: [1.22,1.29], p < 0.00001) and fewer adverse events (RR = 1.24, 95% CI: [1.19,1.29], p < 0.00001). Conclusion: ITCMWM outperforms WM alone in treating UC, and the two therapies have essentially the same safety degree. There is still a necessity to work out the long-term curative effect of ITCMWM in treating UC.

Keywords

• Ulcerative colitis
• Integrated traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine
• Systematic review
• Meta-Analysis