P02.65
Purpose: To assess the beneficial effect and safety of Chinese herbal medicine for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss.
Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search of seven electronic databases and two trial registries to identify randomized clinical trials of Chinese herbal medicine for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss through January 2013 with no language limitation. Two authors independently selected trials and extracted data. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was utilized to assess the methodological quality of the included trials. RevMan 5.2 software was applied for data analysis with effect estimate presented as risk ratio and mean difference with its 95% confidence interval.
Results: Forty-one randomized clinical trials involving 3560 participants were included. Generally, the methodological quality of the trials was of high risk of bias. Forty-four different herbal medicines were tested in these 41 trials. No sufficient evidence showed Chinese herbal medicine was more effective in average change of pure-tone audiometric threshold than conventional therapy. Twenty trials (20/41) demonstrated significant increase in the proportion of participants with pure-tone audiometric threshold change by using Chinese herbal medicine compared to conventional therapy. Data from six trials (50.0%) showed beneficial effect in improvement of tinnitus from Chinese herbal medicine. There was no significant difference between Chinese herbal medicine and conventional therapy in improvement of dizziness, anxiety and depression. Two trials reported adverse effects and no severe adverse effects were reported in Chinese herbal medicine groups.
Conclusion: There appears a limited role for Chinese herbal medicine to significantly contribute to improving hearing in people with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The existing evidence from methodologically poor studies is insufficient to support their clinical use. Therefore, further rigorous trials are needed.
Contact: Jian-Ping Liu, Liujp@bucm.edu.cn
