An updated systematic review and meta-analysis of efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicine for treating atopic dermatitis

Abstract

Background: This systematic review evaluated the Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) for treating atopic dermatitis (AD). Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane library, the Wanfang database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched for relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from inception to December 2021. Overall recovery rate, disease/symptom severity scoring, quality of life (QoL), recurrence rate, and incidence of adverse events (AEs) were evaluated. STATA SE 14.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Results: 17 RCTs involving 1624 patients were eligible. CHM was associated with a higher overall recovery rate (risk ratio [RR] = 1.15, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05, 1.26, p =.003) and decreased recurrence rate (odds ratio [OR] = 0.19, 95% CI: 0.07, 0.55, p =.002), both confirmed by sensitivity analyses. CHM could decrease scoring atopic dermatitis index (MD = −0.61, 95% CI: −1.12, −0.11, p =.017), however, sensitivity analysis revealed non-robustness. No significant differences were found between the CHM and the control group in Eczema Area and Severity Index, QoL, and the incidence of AEs. Conclusions: CHM was effective for treating AD as it could improve the overall recovery rate and decrease the recurrence rate. More studies are required to validate the potential of CHM on disease/symptoms severity and QoL.