Content analysis of systematic reviews on effectiveness of Tradition- al Chinese Medicine

OBJECTIVE： To evaluate evidence for the efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine （TCM） in systematic reviews. METHODS： Chinese （TCM Periodical Literature Da- tabase, Chinese Biological Medicine database, Chi- nese Medical Current Contents, China Hospital Knowledge Database journal fulltext database, Vir- tual Machining and Inspection System, and Wan- fang） and English （Cochrane Database of Systemat- ic Reviews, PubMed and Embase） databases were searched. RESULTS： Three thousand, nine hundred and fif- ty-five articles were initially identified, 606 of which met the inclusion criteria, including 251 in English （83 from the Cochrane Database） and 355 in Chi- nese. The number of articles published each year in- creased between 1989 and 2009. Cardiocerebrovas- cular disease was the most studied target disease.Intervention measures included TCM preparations （177 articles）, acupuncture （133 articles） and combi- nations of TCM and Western Medicine （38 articles）. Control measures included positive medical （177 ar- ticles）, basic treatment （100 articles）, placebo （219 articles）, and blank and mutual （107 articles）. All ar- ticles included at least one reference; the greatest number was 268. Six of 10 articles with high quality references demonstrated curative effectsagainst target diseases including upper respiratory tract in- fection, dementia and depression. Interventions that were not recommended were tripterygium for rheumatoid arthritis and TCM syndrome differentia- tion for pediatric nocturia. In 10.4% of the studies, the authors concluded that the intervention had a curative effect. The assessors agreed with the au- thors＇ conclusions in 88.32% of cases, but rejected 8.94% （54 articles）. CONCLUSION： 1） Training in systematic review methods, including topic selection, study design, methods and technology, should be improved. 2） Upper respiratory tract infection, dementia and de- pression may become the predominant diseases treated by TCM, and the corresponding interven- tions could be developed into practical applica- tions. 3） Use of non-recommended interventions should be controlled, and there should be more re- search on side effects.