Chuanhuning Treatment Of Acute Respiratory Infections, Systematic Reviews Of Randomized Controlled Trials

Objective: To assess the efficiency, safety and clinical economics ofChuanhuning for acute respiratory tract infections. Methods:Randomized controlled trails were applied for systematicreview. Search were applied to the following electronic databases: Medline;Cochrane Library; CBMdisc;handsearch was applied in 15 kinds of Journal ofChinese traditional medicine.In addition,we searched the reference lists ofpapers related to acute respiratory tract infections. Two reviewers extracteddata independently. The methodological quality of trails was assessed by theJadad-scale,and the RCTs were analysised with RevMan4.2. Results:There were 162 RCTs or CCTs have been identified,31 RCTswith 5514 cases were involved.The methodological quality of all trails waslow.The combined results showed that compared with the control group,Chuanhuning significantly increased clinical efficiency (93.46% VS 79.03%;OR 3.99; 95%CI 3.32 ～ 4.78; P<0.001); reduced the duration of fever(WMD=-1.29; 95%CI -1.63～-0.95; P<0.001)and cough(WMD=-1.71;95%CI–2.18 ～ -1.25; P<0.001); shorter the time of disappearance of rale(WMD=-1.55;95%CI -1.91～-1.19 P<0.001); shorter the time to regain anormal condition of x-ray (WMD=-2.76;95%CI –3.54～-1.98; P<0.001) andlength of hospital stay (WMD=-2.40; 95%CI –3.32 ～ -1.49;P<0.001).Asymmetry showed in "Funnel plot" may be related to publicationbias and low quality of methodology.No serious adverse effect was reported. Conclusions:We can not draw reliable conclusions from the present datadue to the general poor methodological quality and potential publicationbias .The efficacy and safety of Chuanhuning in the treatment of acuterespiratory tract infections should be evaluated by more rigorously designed,randomized, multiply-center trails.