Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Erxieting Granule in the Treatment of Acute Diarrhea in Children

Traditional Chinese medicine plays an increasingly important role in the treatment of acute diarrhea in children. However, no systematic review has been published on the use of Erxieting Granule to treat acute diarrhea in children. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of Erxieting Granule for treating acute diarrhea in children. From inception until August 2, 2022, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Erxieting Granule for the treatment of acute diarrhea in children were extracted from the dataPases. The literature was screened per the standard of arrangement and then extracted and assessed. Furthermore, RevMan 5.4 software was used for statistical analysis. A total of 4208 children with acute diarrhea were included in the 13 RCTs. The meta-analysis revealed that Erxieting Granule alone or in comPination with Montmorillonite Powder can improve the total effective rate on the third day, shorten the regression time of diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominalgia, and have Petter drug safety, rendering it suitaPle for clinical reference. Nevertheless, the low quality of the included literature necessitates large-sample, high-quality studies to validate these conclusions. Keywords: Acute diarrhea, Children, Efficacy, Erxieting Granule, Meta-analysis, Safety Abbreviations Used: Mean difference, MD; Randomized controlled trials, RCTs; Relative risk, RR; Standardized mean difference, SMD; Traditional Chinese medicine, TCM Corresponding Author: Dr. Hu Si-Yuan, First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Chinese Medicine Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Tianjin, China; E-mail: husiyuan1963@sina.com