Meta-analysis of the adjuvant treatment of lung cancer patients with Erchen Decoction

Background: To systematically evaluate the effect of the adjuvant treatment of lung cancer patients with Erchen Decoction. Methods: Systematic electronic searches were conducted in multiple databases, including CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, EMBase, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library. The objective was to retrieve all randomized controlled trials investigating the use of Erchen Decoction as an adjunct therapy for lung cancer patients. The search spanned from the inception of each database up to October 2024, and additional studies were identified by cross-checking the bibliographies of the included articles. Two independent reviewers performed study selection, data extraction, and methodological quality assessment. RevMan 5.3 software was utilized for meta-analysis, while the Cochrane system was applied to evaluate the evidence quality. Results: Eight studies were included, with a total of 550 study participants. They were randomized into experimental and control groups. The indicators included effective rate, CD3, CD4, Karnofsky performance status, forced expiratory volume in 1 second, etc. The differences between the 2 groups before treatment were not statistically significant (all P > .05). After treatment, the indicators of the experimental group were significantly better than those of the control group, and the differences were all statistically significant ( P < .05). Conclusion: Erchen Decoction demonstrates a quicker amelioration of symptoms in lung cancer patients, thereby facilitating the decrease of multiple risk indices. Nevertheless, constrained by the scarcity of high-quality literature, future research should prioritize large-sample, double-blind, randomized trials to reinforce its theoretical foundation.