title: Evaluation of the add-on effect of chinese patent medicine for patients with stable or unstable angina: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
abstract: Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely used as an adjunct to western medicine in treating angina in China. We carried out this systematic review to evaluate the effectiveness of CHM on top of western medicine for angina. This meta-analysis included 46 randomized control trials with 4212 patients. For trials that included stable angina patients, the CHM group had significant lower incidence of total heart events (relative risk (RR) = 0.50, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.33-0.78), myocardial infarction (RR = 0.32, 95% CI 0.14-0.72), heart failure (RR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.15-0.91), and angina (RR = 0.46, 95% CI 0.30-0.71) than that of control group. For trials that included unstable angina patients, CHM led to significantly lower occurrence of total heart events (RR = 0.46, 95% CI 0.32-0.66), myocardial infarction (RR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.26-0.54), and angina (RR = 0.36, 95%CI 0.26-0.51). Likewise, for trials that included stable or unstable angina patients, the rates of myocardial infarction (RR = 0.34, 95% CI 0.17-0.68) and angina (RR = 0.46, 95% CI 0.30-0.70) in CHM group were significantly lower than that in control group. In conclusion, CHM is very likely to be able to improve the survival of angina patients who are already receiving western medicine.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China ; The Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China.
authors.forename: Vincent C H
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China ; The Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Jin-Qiu
authors.initials: JQ
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China ; The Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Yuan-Yuan
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China ; The Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Zu-Yao
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China ; The Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Xin-Yin
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, 4/F School of Public Health Building, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10 Yuexing Erdao, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518000, China ; The Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Jin-Ling
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Tang