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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Hepatobiliary Diseases
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1567137
This article is part of the Research Topic Digital Technologies in Hepatology: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Epidemiological Insights View all articles
Immune regulation and clinical response of Chinese Herbal Injections combined with TACE in hepatocellular carcinoma: A cumulative logit regression and Bayesian network metaanalysis
Provisionally accepted- 1 Tianjin Kanghui Hospital, Tianjin, China
- 2 Tianjin Kanghui Hospital, Tianjin, China
- 3 Department of oncology, Laizhou People's Hospital, Yantai, Shandong Province, China
- 4 Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Medical School, Hubei University for Nationalities, Enshi, China
- 5 Zhangdian District Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Zibo City, Shandong, China
- 6 Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin, China
Objectives This study evaluated the immunomodulatory effects and clinical efficacy of Chinese herbal injections (CHIs) combined with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients using cumulative logit regression and Bayesian network meta-analysis.Methods A systematic review of 48 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 4,293 HCC patients was conducted using PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Outcomes included immune markers (CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD4+/CD8+ ratio, NK cells), clinical response rate, and overall survival (6-month, 1-year, 2-year). A cumulative logit regression and Bayesian network meta-analysis were applied to synthesize ordinal and continuous outcomes.Compared to TACE alone, Aidi, Compound kushen, and Huachansu significantly enhanced immune function. Aidi increased CD3+ T cells (MD = 10.95, 95% CI: 8.04-13.86), CD4+ T cells (MD = 7.13, 4.37-9.89), CD4+/CD8+ ratio (MD = 0.31, 0.20-0.41), and NK cells (MD = 6.30, 4.49-8.12), while Compound kushen showed the highest
Keywords: Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Chinese herbal injections, Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization, Cumulative logit regression, Bayesian network meta-analysis
Received: 26 Jan 2025; Accepted: 24 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gu, Zhang, Zhu, Xue and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
QingFeng Liu, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin, China
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