ArticleJournal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.)2006
A systematic review of Chinese medicinal herbs for acute bronchitis.
Article in Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.), 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
- Reprint of
Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo assess the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicinal herbs for treating uncomplicated acute bronchitis. DATA SOURCES: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), which includes the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group's specialized register; The Chinese Cochrane Centre's Controlled Trials Register; MEDLINE; EMBASE; and the Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM).
methodsWe only included randomized controlled trials. At least two authors extracted data and assessed trial quality. MAIN
resultsFour trials reported the time to improvement of cough, fever, and rales associated with bronchitis and showed that patients treated with Chinese herbs had a shorter duration of signs and symptoms. Two trials reported the proportion of patients with improved signs and symptoms at follow-up and showed that Chinese herbs were beneficial in terms of relief of signs and symptoms. Thirteen (13) trials analyzed the data on physician global assessment of improvement at follow-up. Nine (9) of 13 trials showed that Chinese herbs were superior to routine treatment and the other four trials showed a similar effect to routine treatment. In general, Chinese herbs appeared beneficial. Only one trial reported adverse effects during treatment.
conclusionsThere are insufficient quality data to recommend the routine use of Chinese herbs for acute bronchitis. The benefit found in this systematic review could be due to publication bias and study-design limitations of the individual studies. In addition, the safety of Chinese herbs is unknown due to the lack of toxicological evidence on these Chinese herbs, though adverse events are rarely reported.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.