WANG Ya 1,2 , LIU Yanfei 3 , WANG Zhe 1,2,3 , LIU Yue 1,2 , LI Lizhi 1,2
  • 1. Center of Cardiovascular Diseases, Xiyuan Hospital, Chinese Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, 100091, P.R.China;
  • 2. Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, 100091, P.R.China;
  • 3. Graduate School of Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, 100029, P.R.China;
LIU Yue, Email: liuyue@188.com; LI Lizhi, Email: lilizhi0723@126.com
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Objectives To evaluate the methodological quality and the reliability of the conclusions of systematic reviews (SRs) on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for essential hypertension. Methods PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data databases were searched to collect the SRs which focused on the TCM for essential hypertension from January 2015 to June 2019. PRISMA statement, AMSTAR 2 tool and GRADE system were respectively applied to evaluate report quality, methodological quality and evidence quality assessment of included outcomes of SRs.Results A total of 25 SRs involving 65 outcomes were included. PRISMA evaluation results showed that the quality of 25 SRs reports was good. However, all studies did not report item 5 " Was an ‘a prior’ design provided?”. AMSTAR 2 tool evaluation results showed that the 25 SRs of quality levels were markedly low, where most problems concerned item 2 " If there is ‘a prior’ published in advance”, item 3 " Were reasons about selection of the study designs explained”, item 7 " Were the list of exclude of studies and justify the exclusions provided”, item 10 " Were the sources of funding for the studies reported”, and item 12 " If meta-analysis was performed, whether the author assesses the potential impact of risk of bias”. The results of grading showed that most outcomes were graded as " low” or " very low” quality. The main factors contributing to downgrading evidence quality were limitations, followed by inconsistencies, inaccuracies and publication bias.Conclusions Current evidences shows that the treatment of essential hypertension by TCM has been supported by low quality evidence-based medical evidence. However, the SRs methodology for the treatment of essential hypertension by TCM is generally poor in quality and the standardization still require improvement.

Citation: WANG Ya, LIU Yanfei, WANG Zhe, LIU Yue, LI Lizhi. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment for essential hypertension from 2015 to 2019: an overview of systematic reviews. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2019, 19(12): 1460-1469. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.201907136 Copy

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