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Oral Chinese herbal medicine for improvement of quality of life in patients with chronic heart failure: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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Abstract

Purpose

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is not only a leading cause of death, hospitalization, and rehospitalization, but also significantly decreases quality of life (QoL). This study aims to evaluate published clinical trials of oral Chinese herbal medicine (OCHM) for improvement of QoL in patients with CHF that employ the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) score as an outcome measure.

Methods

A systematic literature search was performed using five databases up to June 2013 to identify randomized control trials (RCTs). RCTs involving OCHM plus conventional medicine treatment (CMT) with or without blinding, compared with CMT with or without placebo, with MLHFQ score as an outcome measure were identified. The methodological quality of RCTs was assessed independently using the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Review of Interventions. RevMan 5.2.5 and Stata 11.0 were used for data analysis.

Results

Thirty-eight RCTs with a total of 3,170 participants were identified. The majority of the included trials were assessed to be of high clinical heterogeneity and poor methodological quality. The main results of meta-analysis showed improvement of total MLHFQ score when OCHM plus CMT compared with CMT with or without placebo [MD = −5.71 (−7.07, −4.36), p < 0.01].

Conclusions

There is some encouraging evidence of OCHM combined with CMT for the improvement of QoL in CHF patients. However, the evidence remains weak due to the small sample size, high clinical heterogeneity, and poor methodological quality of the included trials. Further, large sample size and well-designed trials are needed.

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Acknowledgments

The current work was supported by the funding from Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education of China (No. NCET-07-0522). We thank Dr. Xuesheng Ma and Dr. Kristian Leisegang, School of Natural Medicine, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa, for language editing.

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The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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  1. Department of Cardiology, Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 42, Cultural West Road, Jinan, 250011, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Yun-Lun Li & Chuan-Hua Yang

  2. Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, 250355, People’s Republic of China

    Yun-Lun Li, Jian-Qing Ju, Hai-Qiang Jiang, Jing-Wen Xu & Shi-Jun Zhang

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Yun-Lun Li and Jian-Qing Ju contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first authors.

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Li, YL., Ju, JQ., Yang, CH. et al. Oral Chinese herbal medicine for improvement of quality of life in patients with chronic heart failure: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Qual Life Res 23, 1177–1192 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0582-7

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