Efficacy and Safety of Wuling Powder and Western Medicine in Treatment of Hyperuricemia:A Meta-analysis of Clinical Trials

[Objectives]To compare the clinical efficacy and safety of Wuling powder and conventional Western medicine for lowering uric acid in the treatment of hyperuricemia.[Methods]Databases such as CNKI,Wanfang Data,VIP Database,PubMed,Cochrane library and Embase,were retrieved,and comparative experiments of efficacy(serum uric acid level)and safety(incidence of adverse reactions)between Wuling powder(used singly or combined with other prescriptions)and conventional Western medicine in the treatment of hyperuricemia were included,and effect size was pooled with Revman 5.3.[Results]A total of 11 articles,involving 817 patients,were included,and their research quality was evaluated to be low.In terms of overall effect,Wuling powder(used singly or combined with other prescriptions)was better than the control drug in reducing serum uric acid level,but the difference was insignificant[SMD=-0.37,95%CI(-0.90,0.16)].The heterogeneity between studies was high.The incidence of adverse reactions in the experimental group was significantly lower than that in the control group.Subgroup analysis shows that Wuling powder combined with other prescriptions was better than the control drug in reducing serum uric acid level[SMD=-0.37,95%CI(-0.90,0.16),P=0.17],and the heterogeneity was reduced.[Conclusions]Wuling powder combined with other prescriptions is better than conventional Western medicine in the treatment of hyperuricemia,and has better safety.Wuling powder alone is not as effective as conventional Western medicine.It is suggested that in clinical work,doctors may need to modify the prescription of Wuling powder.The low quality of the literature supporting this conclusion suggests that this evidence should be interpreted with caution.