To overview the systematic reviews of Panax notoginseng saponins in the treatment of acute cerebral infarction. CNKI, CBM, Wanfang, VIP, PubMed, Cochrane Library and EMbase databases were retrieved to collect the systematic reviews of the efficacy of P. notoginseng saponins in the treatment of acute cerebral infarction. The retrieval time was from the time of database establishment to January 2021. After two researchers independently screened out the literature and extracted the data, AMSTAR-2 scale was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the included systematic reviews, GRADE system was used to grade the quality of evidences of the outcome indicators, and the efficacy evaluation was summarized. A total of 5 systematic reviews were included. AMSTAR-2 evaluation results showed that 3 items were relatively complete, while 4 items had a poor overall quality. P. notoginseng saponins combined with conventional Western medicine therapy was superior to single conventional therapy in the recovery of neurological function, enhancement of the total effective rate in clinic, and improvement of activities of daily living. GRADE evaluation results showed that the quality of evidence was from low quality to very low quality. In conclusion, in the treatment of acute cerebral infarction, P. notoginseng saponins can improve the clinical efficacy, with a good safety but a not high methodological quality and a low evidence quality. It is suggested that high-quality clinical studies shall be further carried out to provide evidence-based basis for the application of P. notoginseng saponins in the treatment of acute cerebral infarction.
Keywords: AMSTAR-2; GRADE; Panax notoginseng saponins; acute cerebral infarction; overview of systematic reviews.