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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1550759
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Objectives: Several studies have explored the efficacy and safety of various traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) injections for unstable angina pectoris. However, comprehensive systematic evidence confirming the advantages of these injections is still lacking. This Bayesian network meta-analysis was carried out to evaluate and compare the efficacy of different TCM injections in treating unstable angina pectoris.Methods: A systematic search was implemented across PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science, with the date of search cutoff being February 2024. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was utilized to evaluate the bias risk in the included studies.Results: A total of 44 studies, encompassing 4,362 patients with unstable angina pectoris and 21 types of injections, were included. Compared with the standard treatment group, Danhong injection (SMD = -1.1, 95% CrI: -2.0, -0.15), Danshen Chuanxiongqin injection (SMD = -1.9, 95% CrI: -3.7, -0.12), Ginkgo Damole injection (SMD = -2.5, 95% CrI: -4.8, -0.29), Puerarin injection (SMD = -1.8, 95% CrI: -3.2, -0.37), and Shuxuetong injection (SMD = -7.8, 95% CrI: -13, -2.3) were found to significantly reduce the frequency of angina attacks. However, no significant improvement was observed in the duration of angina episodes with any of the included TCM injections compared with the standard treatment group. There was no significant difference in the incidence of adverse events from TCM injections.Conclusion: Adjunctive treatment with TCM injections, in addition to conventional therapy, can remarkably reduce the frequency of angina attacks and demonstrates a favorable safety profile. However, it does not appear to significantly reduce the duration of angina episodes. Future studies should include more multicenter populations to validate our conclusions, as the population included in this study was predominantly Chinese.
Keywords: Traditional Chinese Medicine, Injection, Unstable angina pectoris, Bayesian network meta-analysis, Systematic review
Received: 24 Dec 2024; Accepted: 26 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Wang, Zhu, Guo, Cui, Ban, Chi, Shi, Wang, Liu and Zhou. 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:
Yabin Zhou, First Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Jilin Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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