Chinese herbal medicines of supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin combined with chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer: A meta-analysis and systematic review.

BACKGROUND

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the malignant tumors with the highest incidence and mortality. This meta-analysis aimed to explore the efficacy of the supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin method combined with chemotherapy for the treatment of NSCLC based on qualified randomized controlled trials.

METHOD

PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases were searched by the index words to identify the eligible studies, and relevant literature sources were also searched. The latest research was performed in December 2017. Of the eligible studies, only those involving randomized controlled trials were included. Relative risks (RR) along with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were used to analyze the main outcomes.

RESULT

A total of 41 studies were involved in the meta-analysis with 1335 objects in the treatment group and 1272 objects in the control group. Compared with chemotherapy, supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin combined with chemotherapy significantly increased the effective rate (RR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.24-1.51), increased the Karnofsky score (RR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.39-1.61), and improved the TCM symptom (RR: 1.69, 95% CI: 1.55-1.85).

CONCLUSION

These results demonstrated that supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin combined with chemotherapy would have better clinical efficacy in effective rate, the Karnofsky score, and TCM symptom. Most of the included studies had a low Jadad score; however, there is still a need for high-quality, larger-sample, multicentric, and long-term follow-up randomized controlled trials to confirm our conclusion.