Meta-analysis of the efficacy and safety of Ding-Chuan Tang in the treatment of pediatric cough variant asthma

Objective:To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of Ding-Chuan Tang in the treatment of pediatric cough variant asthma(CVA).Methods:Randomized controlled trials on the treatment of pediatric CVA with Ding-Chuan Tang were searched by computer through the China Journal Full Text Database(CNKI),WanFang Digital Journal Full Text Database(WanFang Data),Vipe Chinese Science and Technology Journal Database(VIP),Pubmed Database,Ovid Database,Embase Database,etc.The search time was from database establishment to April 1,2021.Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria,the Executive editor:Nuo-Xi Pi.Received:10 September 2021;Accepted:13 January 2022;Available online:19 January 2022.©2022 By Author(s).Published by TMR Publishing Group Limited.This is an open access article under the CC-BY license.(http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/BY/4.0/)two researchers independently screened the literature,extracted information,and assessed the methodological quality evaluation of the literature,and Meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.4 software.Results:The final number of RCTs was included 17,including cases of affected 1308 children.According to the results of the Meta-analysis:the test group was significantly better than the control group in terms of clinical efficiency,percentage of first second force expiratory volume(FEV1%),percentage of peak expiratory flow rate(PEF%),time to treatment onset,time to the disappearance of symptoms,Chinese medicine symptom score,and recurrence rate;the difference in the incidence of adverse reactions between the two groups was not statistically significant.Conclusion:The clinical treatment of pediatric CVA with Ding-Chuan Tang is effective and does not increase the incidence of adverse reactions.However,the methodological and reporting quality of existing small-sample randomized controlled trials(RCTs)is low,so evidence of efficacy must be confirmed by rigorously designed large-sample clinical trials.