Meta-analysis of clinical efficacy of traditional chinese medicine in the treatment of aplastic anemia

Abstract

Background: The “Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines for Chinese Medicine Internal Common Diseases” issued by the Chinese Institute of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) offers many methods for the treatment of aplastic anemia (AA). However, there is a lack of corresponding evidence. Objective: The study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of TCM in the treatment of AA, and provide evidence for the development of guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of AA using TCM. Methods: Data of randomized or semi-randomized control trials of AA treatments with TCM were retrieved, and the selected literature was scored using the Jadad scale. The data were extracted, and RevMan 5.2.6 software was used for the meta-analysis. Results: Two studies on the treatment of AA using Liuwei Dihuang pills combined with compound Zaofan pill were included. The results of the meta-analysis showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the efficacy between Liuwei Dihuang pills combined with compound Zaofan pill and androgen in the treatment of AA (P = 0.65). However, there were less adverse reactions, including liver damage and the hirsutism of women, with the former than the latter (P < 0.05). Other studies on the treatment of AA with TCM did not include reports from clinical trials. Conclusion: TCM had a certain curative effect when used to treat AA. However, the quality of the literature is generally low, and the sample size is small, which makes the validation of the results poor. Further high-quality studies are needed to provide high-level evidence.

Keywords

• Aplastic anemia
• meta-analysis
• traditional Chinese medicine