Compound Kushen Injection combined with Chemotherapy in Advanced Gastric Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of compound Kushen injection combined with chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer. Methods: A computerized search through PubMed, MEDLINE, CNKI, Web of Science and Baidu Scholar electronic databases was performed to obtain randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the efficacy and safety of compound Kushen injection plus chemotherapy in patients with advanced gastric cancer with chemotherapy alone, covering all papers published up to 20 January 2020. The quality of the included literature was evaluated using the Cochrane-rereviewer's Handbook 5.1 evaluation criteria, and the data was analyzed by Rev-Man5.3 analysis software. Results: a total of 1744 patients with advanced gastric cancer were enrolled in 21 RCT studies. Meta analysis results show that: Compared with chemotherapy alone, compound Kushen injection combined with chemotherapy improved the total effective rate (OR=1.89; 95% CI:1.56-2.31, P<0.00001), pain relief rate (OR=3.15; 95% CI: 1.81-5.50, P<0.0001), and thrombocytopenia rate (OR=0.51; 95% CI:0.31-0.85, P=0.009) in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer. Conclusion: Compound Kushen injection combined with chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer can effectively improve the clinical efficacy, relieve pain, reduce chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia and other adverse reactions, which is worthy of clinical application.