Introduction: Traditional Chinese medicine has been widely used in the treatment of asthma, but currently there has been no comprehensive evaluation on the efficacy and safety of different traditional Chinese medicine therapies, based on network meta-analysis (NMA).
Methods and analysis: The retrieval strategy was strictly followed in the English databases PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Chinese databases: CNKI and Wanfang. The retrieval time was limited from the beginning of each database construction to September 12, 2020. Meanwhile, in order to prevent data missing, we compared the previous meta-analysis to determine the final inclusion results. The main indexes were Spirometry, the secondary indexes were Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire and adverse events. Methodological quality of articles was assessed using the Cochrane Collaborative tool, and evidence quality was assessed using the Recommended Scoring, Development, and Evaluation tool. Completed The NMA using Stata statistical software (Version 14.0, Stata Corporation, College Station, TX). The Cochrane Collaboration's Tool was used to evaluate the methodological quality of articles, the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation instrument was used to evaluate the quality of evidence. NMA was completed by using Stata Statistical Software (Version 14.0, Stata Corporation, College Station, TX).
Results: The study will rank 3 traditional Chinese medicine treatments for asthma.
Conclusion: This study is the first time to use NMA to compare the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of asthma, which will provide ideas and methods for the clinical treatment for asthma.
Inplasy registration number: INPLASY202090052.