Effect of Jianpi therapy in treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy of Jianpi therapy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in stable phase by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis.MethodsThe literatures concerning randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs comparing TCM treatment plus Western Medicine (WM) treatment with TCM alone, or TCM treatment vs no treatment, placebo for stable phase of COPD were searched in PubMed (1990-December 2010), in English and using Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, 1990-December 2010), Chinese Biomedical Database (1990-December 2010), Wangfang Database (1990-December 2010), and Weipu (VIP) Database in Chinese. The quality assessment and data extraction for RCTs were conducted by two reviewers independently. Jadad scale and allocation concealment were used to assess the quality of the included studies, and meta-analyses were conducted with the Collaboration's Revman 5.0 software.ResultsSeventeen RCTs or quasi-RCTs involving 1269 patients were included. The methodological quality was poor in all trials except one trial (Jadad score=4). In the meta-analysis, TCM-WM treatment was significantly superior to WM treatment in cure rate [OR=3.82, 95%CI (2.45, 5.95)], and the effective rate between TCM treatment and placebo also had significant difference [OR=4.31, 95%CI (2.35, 7.91)]. Moreover, pulmonary function of the patients in TCM-WM group and TCM group was significantly improved [forced vital capacity (FVC), P=0.01, quality of life, P