Meta-analysis on integrative medicine for the treatment of malignant ascites: a comparative study

ObjectiveTo compare the efficacy of integrated Chinese and Western Medicine with that of only Western Medicine for the treatment of malignant ascites.MethodsAll randomized controlled trials (January 2004 to March 2013) from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and Wanfang Database were searched with keywords. Meta-analysis was conducted by combining the odds ratios of the individual studies. Review Manager 5.0 was used for the analysis.ResultsOne thousand one hundred and fifty-six patients from 19 randomized controlled trails were included. Of them, 630 patients were treated with integrated Chinese and Western Medicine (the integrative group), and 526 patients were treated with Western Medicine alone (the control group). The Meta-analysis showed that the total effective rate was 78.73% in the integrated group, and 59.13% in the control group. The effective percentage was significantly higher in the integrative group than that of the control group [OR = 2.85, 95% CI (2.16, 3.74), P < 0.01].ConclusionThe short-term curative effect in the integrative group was better than that in the control group. Integrative medicine may be beneficial for malignant ascites.