Background and purpose: In the East-Asian countries, the combined treatment of Western medicine and herbal medicine has been widely administered. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of herbal medicine in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke.
Methods: We searched the PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, and CNKI up to January 2017. Randomized Controlled Trials evaluating the effect of adjunctive herbal medicine on acute ischemic stroke were included.
Results: A total of 80 studies (8057 patients) were collected. The overall methodological quality was low. In the herbal group, meta-analysis indicated a statistically significant improvement in the neurologic deficits and activity of daily living compared with the non-herbal group. Furthermore, herbal treatments were relatively safe.
Conclusion: The treatment can induce neurological improvements without side effects. However, concrete conclusions cannot be made due to the methodological problems of the included studies.
Keywords: Acute ischemic stroke; Buyang Huanwu decoction; Herbal medicine; Huanlian Jiedu decoction; Meta-analysis; Systematic review.
Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.