Background: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the main cause of end-stage renal failure (ESRF) in diabetic patients. Chinese medicine plays an extremely important role in controlling the symptoms of DN. At present, the efficacy and safety of Bailing capsules in the treatment of type 2 DN are still unclear. Therefore, the aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of Bailing capsules in the treatment of type 2 DN.
Methods: A literature search on type 2 DN was conducted using Chinese and English databases. The Chinese databases searched were the CNKI database, Wanfang database, and Weipu database using the following search terms: Bailing capsule and DN. The English databases were PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science using the following search terms: type 2 diabetes mellitus, type II diabetes mellitus, and Bailing capsule. The quality of the literature was evaluated using RevMan 5.3 software. The meta-analysis was performed using the R3.5.1 software meta package.
Results: Twenty-four articles with a total of 985 patients in the treatment group and 956 patients in the control group were found. The total effective rate of Bailing capsules in the treatment group was 1.24 times that of the control group [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.11-1.38]. Reductions in 24-h urine total protein, urine albumin excretion rate (UAER), serum creatinine (Scr), and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels before and after treatment in the treatment group were significantly lower than that of the control group, with standard mean differences (SMD) of 0.61 (95% CI: -1.01 to -0.22), -1.56 (95% CI: -2.34 to -0.78), -0.58 (95% CI: -0.89 to -0.27), and -0.73 (95% CI: -1.16 to -0.29), respectively. However, there was no significant change in serum potassium between the two groups (P>0.05). No publication bias was found in the metaanalysis (P>0.05).
Conclusions: For type 2 DN patients, the use of Bailing capsules in routine treatment demonstrated higher clinical efficacy and was found to improve the kidney function. However, high-quality randomized controlled trials are required to further explore the safety of Bailing capsules.
Keywords: Bailing capsule; Meta-analysis; Type 2 diabetic nephropathy (type 2 DN).