SynthesisInternational journal of clinical oncology2025
Is daikenchuto effective for postoperative intestinal dysfunction after gastroenterological cancer surgery? An updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in International journal of clinical oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Nationwide Practice Patterns of Early Postoperative Kampo Medicine after Gastrectomy for Gastric Cancer: A Japanese Administrative Database Study.Journal of gastrointestinal cancer · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundsPostoperative intestinal dysfunction is a major complication following abdominal surgery. Daikenchuto (DKT), Japanese herbal (Kampo) medicine, has been investigated the efficacy for postoperative intestinal dysfunction. However, the studies have conveyed inconclusive results and previous meta-analysis included not only true randomized controlled trials (RCTs), but low-quality RCTs.
methodsA comprehensive electronic literature search was conducted through April 2025 to identify true RCTs comparing patients between with or without perioperative DKT administration in gastroenterological cancer surgery. The primary outcome was the time to first postoperative flatus. A meta-analysis was performed using random-effects models to calculate mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
resultsEleven true RCTs involving 1413 patients (with DKT group, n = 716; Without DKT group, n = 697) were included. The meta-analysis demonstrated a significant improvement of the time to first postoperative flatus in the With DKT group than in the Without DKT group, with an MD of - 0.19 (95% CI - 0.34 to - 0.04, P = 0.01), and no significant between-study heterogeneity was observed (χ
conclusionsThis meta-analysis suggests that DKT can improve postoperative intestinal dysfunction (i.e., first postoperative flatus) after gastroenterological cancer surgery, but the efficacy was modest. Thus, the efficacy of DKT on improving postoperative intestinal dysfunction warrants further investigation in more high quality RCTs. REGISTRY AND REGISTRATION NUMBER: This systematic review and meta-analysis was registered with UMIN-CTR (ID: UMIN000066046) ( https://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index-j.htm ).
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