Background: Huachansu, a Chinese medicine that comes from dried toad venom from the skin glands of Bufo bufo gargarizans Cantor or Bufo melanostictus Schneider, has been used in treatment of cancers. We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Huachansu combined with chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer.
Methods: The main efficacy measures were total response rates, quality of life and one-year survival rate. We also assessed the safety of treatments by evaluating the rate of occurrence of gastrointestinal side effects, leucocytopenia and neurotoxicity. The pooled relative ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was calculated to estimate the efficacy and safety of Huachansu combined with chemotherapy.
Results: Fifteen randomized controlled trails were eligible. The result showed that Huachansu combined with chemotherapy was superior to simple chemotherapy treatment in increasing of total response rate [RR = 1.28; 95% CI: (1.11, 1.18)] and Karnofsky score [RR = 1.31; 95% CI: (1.18, 1.45)], and reducing gastrointestinal side effects [RR = 0.71; 95% CI: (0.61, 0.82)], and leucocytopenia [RR = 0.75; 95% CI: (0.64, 0.87)]; there was no significant difference on one-year survival rate (RR = 1.25; 95% CI: 0.73, 2.14) between combination group and simple chemotherapy group.
Conclusion: Compared with chemotherapy control group, Huchansu combined with chemotherapy provide benefits for advanced gastric cancer on improving the response rate, increasing Karnofsky score, reducing leucocytopenia and major side effects such as gastrointestinal side effects caused by chemotherapy.
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