ArticleEvidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM2020
Oral Chinese Herbal Medicine as Prophylactic Treatment for Episodic Migraine in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.
Article in Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy and Safety of Oral Chinese Herbal Medicine for Migraine: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses Using Robust Variance Estimation Model.Frontiers in neurology · 2022Pooled it
- Mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Treating Migraine: A Comprehensive Review.Journal of pain research · 2024Review
- Real-world observations and impacts of Chinese herbal medicine for migraine: results of a registry-based cohort study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- An Overview of Systematic Reviews of Chinese Herbal Medicine in the Treatment of Migraines.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Review
- Chinese herbal medicine for migraine management: A hospital-based retrospective analysis of electronic medical records.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- Natural products for migraine: Data-mining analyses of Chinese Medicine classical literature.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Article
- Article
- Understanding Traditional Chinese Medicine Therapeutics: An Overview of the Basics and Clinical Applications.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe prophylactic effects of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) for migraine were examined in numerous clinical trials. This review aimed to analyze the effectiveness and safety of CHM as prophylactic treatment of migraine compared to flunarizine.
methodsNine databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated effects of CHM for episodic migraine prophylaxis compared to flunarizine, published before March 2019.
resultsThirty-five RCTs with 2,840 participants met the inclusion criteria, and 31 of them were included in meta-analyses. The overall meta-analysis indicated that, when compared to flunarizine, CHM reduced the frequency of migraine attacks at the end of treatment (EoT) (21 studies, mean difference (MD) -1.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) (-1.69, -0.76)) and at the end of follow-up (EoFU) (five studies, MD -0.96, 95% CI (-1.70, -0.21)). Subgroup analyses based on the treatment duration, follow-up duration, and the dosage of flunarizine showed that CHM was superior to or comparable with flunarizine in reducing migraine frequency. Similar results were also found for secondary outcomes such as the pain visual analogue scale, migraine duration, responder rate, and acute medication usage. In particular, the studies that used CHM containing herb pairs (Chuan Xiong plus Bai Zhi and Chuan Xiong plus Tian Ma) showed promising results. However, the certainty of this evidence was evaluated as "low" or "very low" using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations approach.
conclusionCHM appeared to be comparable with flunarizine in reducing the frequency of episodic migraine attacks in adults at EoT and EoFU and well-tolerated by participants, regardless of the treatment duration, follow-up duration, and dosage of flunarizine. Due to the low certainty of the evidence, the suggested promising prophylactic outcomes require higher quality evidence from further rigorous RCTs.
Identifiers
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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.