Comparative efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal injections combined with transcatheter hepatic arterial chemoembolization in treatment of liver cancer: a bayesian network Meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE

To address the optimal Chinese herbal injections (CHIs) against liver cancer, the present network Meta-analysis is designed to investigate the comparative efficacy and safety of different CHIs.

METHODS

Several electronic databases were searched up to June 1st, 2017. The quality assessment was conducted and network Meta-analysis was performed to compare the efficacy and safety of different CHIs plus transcatheter hepatic arterial chemoembolization (TACE). Primary outcomes were 1-year and 2-year survival rate, the secondary outcomes includes the clinical effective rate, performance status and the adverse reactions (ADRs). Data analysis was applied Stata 13.0 and WinBUGS 1.4 software.

RESULTS

A total of 105 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were identified for inclusion in this analysis, with data for 7683 patients and 13 CHIs. The results suggested that Javanica oil emulsion, Huachansu injection plus TACE were more favorable for 1-year and 2-year survival rate than other CHIs. Kanglaite, Astragalus polysaccharide injection plus TACE showed superiority in the clinical effective rate and performance status over other CHIs. And Shenmai injection plus TACE was superior to reducing ADRs than other CHIs for patients with liver cancer.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicated that receiving CHIs combined with TACE may have therapeutic benefits for patients with liver cancer in improving survival rate, clinical effective rate, the performance status and alleviating the ADRs.