P05.06
Purpose: Chinese patent medicines (CPMs) are thought to be effective for common cold, and dozens have been authorized recommended in the “China national essential drug list” by the Chinese Ministry of Health. However, there is no critically appraised evidence on potential benefits and harms of CPMs for common cold to justify their clinical use and their recommendation.
Methods: CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, SinoMed, CNKI, VIP, China Important Conference Papers Database, China Dissertation Database, and online clinical trial registry websites were searched for published and unpublished clinical studies of CPMs listed in the “China national essential drug list” for common cold till 31 March 2013.
Results: A total of 40 CPMs were listed in “China national essential drug list 2012” for the treatment of common cold. However, only eight have clinical evidence supported. A total of six RCTs and eight CSs were included, no other study design was identified. All studies were conducted in China, and published in Chinese between 1995 and 2013. All the included studies were with flawed study design and poor methodological quality, and were graded as low or very low quality level according to GRADE approach (Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation Working Group).
Conclusion: Most of the CPMs recommended in the “China national essential drug list 2012” were not supported by clinical evidence, which revealed the lack of evidence for clinical use and health policy in China. To ensure evidence-based clinical practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine, further rigorous placebo-controlled, randomized trials are warranted.
Contact: Wei Chen, chen7916@hotmail.com
