Effects of Duhuojisheng Tang and combined therapies on prolapse of lumbar intervertebral disc： a systematic review of randomized control trails

OBJECTIVE： A systematic review of the literature was conducted to evaluate the curative effect and safety of Duhuojisheng Tang on prolapse of the lumbar intervertebral disc. METHODS： The databases of PubMed, China Na- tional Knowledge Infrastructure （CNKI）, Chinese Sci- entific Journals Database （VlP）, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database （CBM） and Chinese Medical Ci- tation Index （CMCl） were searched up to January 30, 2012. Randomized controlled trials were select- ed to compare Duhuojisheng Tang with one ormore of the following treatments： traction, acu- puncture, massage, cupping and Western medical treatment. The quality-evaluating standard and the software RevMan 5.1 in Cochrane coordinative net were used to analyze the data. The effective index- es of the results were clinical curative rate, effective- ness of alleviating clinical symptoms and adverse reaction. RESULTS： Thirty-one randomized controlled trials of low quality, involving 3915 patients were system- atically evaluated. Statistical analyses showed that good curative effect was achieved in both the group using Duhuojisheng Tang alone and with combined therapies. CONCLUSION： Using Duhuojisheng Tang alone or combined with other therapies can effectively im- prove pain, leg-raising height and other clinical symptoms of patients with prolapse of lumbar in- tervertebral disc. Due to low methodological quali- ty of the articles, no exact recommendations can be made.