Clinical symptoms effect of Tripterygium Glycosides Tablets alone or combined with methotrexate in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis: a Meta-analysis

Abstract

To systematically review the improvement effects of Tripterygium Glycosides Tables( TGT) alone or in combination with methotrexate( MTX) on the clinical signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis( RA),and provide a basis for the rational use of TGT in clinic,in the current study,six literature databases including CNKI,Wan Fang,VIP,PubMed,EMbase,and Cochrane Library,were systematically searched,according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Review Manager 5.3 software was used to input the literatures,and we assessed the risk bias on the level of outcome indicators for each included literature. A total of 18 literatures were included,and the classification results showed that: compared with MTX,TGT alone can reduce the number of joint swelling( MD =0. 18,95%CI[-1.06,1.42],P = 0.78) and joint tenderness( MD =-0.06,95% CI[-1.69,1.56],P = 0.94) in RA patients with the same effect as MTX. In terms of drug combination,TGT combined with MTX had an advantage over MTX alone in lessening the morning stiffness time( MD = 18. 24,95% CI[12. 64,23. 84],P < 0. 000 01) of RA,joint tenderness( MD = 2. 65,95% CI[1. 85,3. 44],P<0.000 01) and joint swelling( MD = 3.01,95% CI[2.09,3.39],P< 0.000 01). In conclusion,this Meta-analysis suggest that TGT alone was superior to MTX in improving joint swelling and tenderness in RA patients,TGT combined with MTX may improve the clinical manifestation of RA patients better than MTX alone.