Compound Kushen Injection as an Adjunctive Therapy for the Treatment of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

• Published in: Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine Vol. 2019; no. 2019; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yimin, Zhu, Ming-min, Li, Cheng-lu, Lin, Ji-huan, Chen, Shu-lian, Wu, Kun-ji, Cao, Lu-xi, Chen, Weihao, Pu, Liu, Wang, Shi-qi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2019; Hindawi; Hindawi Limited
• Subjects: Apoptosis; Bias; Cancer therapies; Chemotherapy; Clinical trials; Drug dosages; Evidence-based medicine; Immune response; Immunoglobulins; Injection; Lung cancer; Meta-analysis; Non-small cell lung carcinoma; Oncology; Patients; Quality control; Randomization; Reading; Small cell lung carcinoma; Systematic review
• ISSN: 1741-427X; 1741-4288
• DOI: 10.1155/2019/7241927

Objectives. To evaluate the efficacy and safety of compound Kushen injection (CKI) combined with chemo treatment (chemo) for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods. We systematically searched the literature published in seven databases, including Embase, PubMed, central, MEDLINE, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP, from their inception to April 2019 for all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing CKI plus chemo with chemo alone in patients with NSCLC. Our main end point was clinical efficiency and the secondary outcomes were Karnofsky performance score (KPS), immune function, and adverse events. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was applied for quality assessment. Results. 10 studies involving 1019 participants were included. The clinical response rate (relative risk (RR) = 1.21, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06 to 1.37; P=0.003), KPS (RR = 2.18, 95% CI: 1.49 to 3.17; P<0.0001), immune function (mean differences (MD) = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.12 to 1.52; P=0.02) and adverse effects (RR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.60 to 0.74; P<0.00001) in the CKI plus chemo group showed significant differences when compared with chemo alone. Conclusions. CKI combined with chemo can improve clinical efficiency, KPS, and immune function and reduce adverse reactions in patients with NSCLC when compared with chemo alone. However, more rigorously designed RCTs are needed to validate this benefit, as some of the included RCTs are of low methodological quality.