title: Clinical trials of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy--a systematic review based on a subgroup analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The purpose of this study is to systematically evaluate the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) decoctions with different ingredients in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy (DN).
  
  
  METHODS
  Papers obtained after the retrieval of randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) of TCM treatments of diabetic nephropathy through online database (e.g. Medline, CBM, CNKI, VIP, the online database of Chinese medicine, CDFD, CMFD, and CENTRAL FROM Cochrane Library, etc.) as well as research data in our library. They were published between January 2001 and December 2012. According to the categories of the main TCM ingredients, all the cases in the literature were divided into a liver-kidney YIN deficiency group, a QI-BLOOD YIN-and-YANG deficiency group, and a spleen-kidney YANG deficiency group. Stata 11.0 was applied for subgroup analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 21 Chinese RCTs were included in this review. The Q values of the three groups were 13.18, 0.25 and 3.27, respectively, P>0.05, and thus, there was no clinical heterogeneity. The combined relative risk (RR) value and its 95% confidence interval were 1.48 (1.37, 1.60), 1.19 (1.06, 1.34), and 1.33 (1.19, 1.50), respectively, P<0.05.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Compared with the qi-blood yin-and-yang deficiency group and the spleen-kidney yang deficiency group, the liver-kidney yin deficiency group has better prospects in clinical application to ensure renal function during the treatment of DN, and this possibility is worthy of further study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Pinyi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Yanqi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Yazhou
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Soft College, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing 400065, China.
authors.forename: Dixiang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Wenquan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China. Electronic address: liuxy1105@163.com.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yi
mesh_terms: D003928:Diabetic Nephropathies / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional
keywords: CBM; CDMD; CNKI; Chinese academy of sciences database; Chinese biomedical literature database; Chinese doctoral dissertation full-text database; DN; Diabetic nephropathy; RCT; Subgroup meta-analysis; Systematic review; TCM; Traditional Chinese medicine; diabetic nephropathy; randomized controlled clinical trial; traditional Chinese medicine