title: Chinese medicinal herbs for mumps.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mumps is an infectious disease caused by the mumps virus. Chinese physicians generally believe that Chinese medicinal herbs are effective in alleviating symptoms and reducing the duration of mumps. Herbalists tend to develop a treatment plan according to the individual's symptoms.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicinal herbs for mumps.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched CENTRAL Issue 4, 2012, MEDLINE (1948 to April week 3, 2012), EMBASE (1974 to April 2012), CINAHL (1981 to April 2012), AMED (1985 to April 2012), the Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM) (1980 to May 2012), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) (1979 to May 2012), VIP Information (1989 to May 2012), and relevant databases of ongoing trials.
  
  
  METHODS
  Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of Chinese medicinal herbs for mumps (with or without complications).
  
  
  METHODS
  Two review authors (MS, ZL) independently evaluated trial quality and conducted data extraction. We contacted the trial authors for missing data regarding participant allocation. Some trials allocated participants according to the participants' admitting sequence, making it a pseudo-random allocation. None of the trials concealed participants allocation or used blinding.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We did not identify any eligible trials for inclusion. We identified 102 studies which claimed to use random allocation. Ninety-nine studies were excluded because the allocation methods the authors had used were not actually randomised. We were unable to contact the trial authors of the remaining three studies. These trials require further evaluation and have been allocated to the 'Studies awaiting classification' section.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We did not find any RCTs for or against Chinese herbal medicine used in the treatment of mumps. We hope more high-quality RCTs will be conducted in the future.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, West China Second University Hospital, West China Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.forename: Yi Qiong
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zhiyao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Guan J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Chaomin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wan
mesh_terms: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D009107:Mumps / Q000188:drug therapy*; D008517:Phytotherapy / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal