Systematic review and Meta-analysis of Shenqi Fuzheng injection combined with first-line chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

The paper is to systematically evaluate the effect and safety of Shenqi Fuzheng injection (SFI) combined with first-line chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on Shenqi Fuzheng injection (SFI) combined with first-line chemotherapy (experiment group) and chemotherapy alone group ( control group) were electronically retrieved from Medline, EMbase, Clinical Trials, Cochrane Library, CBM, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang Data base. All trials were assessed for quality according to the Cochrane Reviewer's Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Intervention and then Meta-analysis was performed withRevMan5. 2 Software. A total of 43 RCTs (3433 patients) were included after screening and selecting. Results of Meta-analysis showed that: Objective remission rate (ORR): ORR of experimental group was about 20% higher than that of control group [RR = 1.23, 95% CI (1.11,1.35), P < 0.0001]. Disease control rate (DCR):DCR of SFI combined with first-line chemotherapy was 11% higher than that of first-line chemotherapy alone [RR = 1.11, 95% CI (1.07, 1.16), P < 0.000 01]. Life quality evaluated by Kosovan performance status (KPS) showed that: life quality improvement rate of experimental group was about twice of that in control group [RR = 2.02, 95% CI (1.81, 2.26), P < 0.000 01]. Toxic and side reaction analysis showed that: the incidence of side reactions in experimental group was about 50% lower than that in control group [RR = 0.59, 95% CI (0.53, 0.66), P < 0.000 01]. Immune function test showed that: the function of experimental group was 3.2 (standard deviations) times greater than that of control group [MD = 3.23, 95% CI (2.86, 3.60), P < 0.000 01]. We can see that SFI combined with first-line chemotherapy for NSCLC can increase objective efficacy, improve life quality, decrease toxic and side reactionsinduced by chemotherapy, and improve the immune functions. As most of the included studies in this systematic evaluation had poor quality, the evidence to support conclusion was weak, so it was necessary to conduct more multi-center clinical trials with high quality methods and rigorous design.