Chen Jia-Xu, Hu Li-Sheng
School of Pre-clinical Medicine, Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
J Altern Complement Med. 2006 Oct;12(8):763-9. doi: 10.1089/acm.2006.12.763.
To systematically evaluate the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicine for treating chronic prostatitis (CPT) in China.
Electronic medical database from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) was searched, language is Chinese; date is from January 1, 1994 to December 31, 2003. A total of 108 trials were found, and all studies with words like "randomization" or "quasi-randomization" in their abstracts were included, whether they used blinding or not. Nineteen theses that met the entry criteria were downloaded and fully printed. Four groups were divided: Chinese herbs orally treated group (based on syndrome differentiation), Chinese herbs externally treated group, Chinese herbs orally and externally treated group, and integrated Western with Chinese herbs treated group.
All 19 articles that met the entry criteria were clinical trial studies with low quality (Jadad Score <3). The results showed that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) may benefit the patients who had CPT. However, from the results of the funnel plots analysis of all four groups of clinical trials that met the inclusion criteria in this systematic review are distant asymmetrical and irregular plots, which indicate that a positive publication bias may exist. There was no obvious evidence indicating that the efficacy of the therapy in the treated groups using TCM was superior to that of the control group (Western medicine treatment group).
All of the four groups in the clinical trials have not provided evidence of evidence-based medicine (EBM) A class (including 1a, 1b, 1c level), failed to prove that the TCM may have beneficial effects for patients with CPT, because of low quality in all the trials and a positive publication bias. Therefore, in light of some positive outcomes, a good design of multicentered, randomized, parallel-controlled and blinding trials is needed in order to make further studies, and deserve further examination for the treatment of CPT with TCM.
系统评价中国中药治疗慢性前列腺炎（CPT）的有效性。
检索中国知网（CNKI）的电子医学数据库，语言为中文；时间范围是1994年1月1日至2003年12月31日。共检索到108项试验，所有摘要中包含“随机化”或“半随机化”等词的研究均被纳入，无论是否采用盲法。下载并全文打印了19篇符合纳入标准的论文。分为四组：口服中药治疗组（辨证论治）、中药外治组、口服与外治结合组、中西医结合治疗组。
所有19篇符合纳入标准的文章均为低质量的临床试验研究（Jadad评分<3）。结果显示，中医可能对CPT患者有益。然而，在本系统评价中，对符合纳入标准的四组临床试验进行漏斗图分析的结果显示，图形遥远不对称且不规则，这表明可能存在阳性发表偏倚。没有明显证据表明中医治疗组的疗效优于对照组（西医治疗组）。
临床试验中的四组均未提供循证医学（EBM）A级证据（包括1a、1b、1c级），未能证明中医对CPT患者可能有益，因为所有试验质量较低且存在阳性发表偏倚。因此，鉴于一些阳性结果，需要进行多中心、随机、平行对照和盲法试验的良好设计以进行进一步研究，中医治疗CPT值得进一步研究。
