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Objective. This paper systematically assessed the efficacy and safety of Jingtong granule (JG) for cervical radiculopathy (CR). Methods. Randomized controlled trials comparing JG with no intervention, placebo, or conventional therapies were retrieved. The trials testing JG combined with conventional therapies versus conventional therapies were also enrolled. Study selection, methodological assessment, data extraction, and analysis were conducted in accordance with the Cochrane standards. The strength of evidence was evaluated according to GRADE approach. Results. Three trials with 400 participants were included. Methodological quality was evaluated as generally low. One study found that JG showed significant difference on decreasing pain scores compared with placebo. Meta-analysis indicated that JG plus conventional analgesic exhibited a significant immediate effect on the pain scores (WMD = 1.63; 95% CI: 1.29 to 1.98; P < 0.00001). Additionally, JG combined with analgesic presented beneficial immediate effect on neck disability index. However, the treatment effects of JG demonstrated in the trials were not large, and the safety of JG was unproven. Finally the evidence level was evaluated to be low. Conclusions. Our results indicated that JG showed some potential benefits for CR. Nevertheless, treatment effects are uncertain due to both the methodological concerns and the very modest reported improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been commonly used for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Syndrome differentiation is one of the important characteristics of TCM. To assess the application and basic characteristics of syndrome differentiation in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Chinese herbal medicine for IBS, we performed this paper. We conducted electronic searches in main Chinese and English databases till March 2012. A total of 735 RCTs involving 67,784 IBS participants were included. 224 (30.5%) studies applied syndrome differentiation. The major syndromes of IBS patients were the syndrome of liver stagnation and spleen deficiency (56.8%), spleen-stomach weakness (49.4%), spleen-kidney yang deficiency (48.1%), and cold and heat in complexity (29.6%). Herbal formulas were prescribed based on syndrome differentiation in 202 studies. Chinese patent medicine was more commonly used in studies that only enrolled patients with a specific syndrome. 15 studies compared the therapeutic effect among different syndromes, of which 6 studies showed that there were significant differences among different syndromes. The low use of TCM syndrome differentiation in randomized trials of Chinese herbal medicine for IBS results in the poor pertinence of treatment. TCM syndrome differentiation should be used in further studies at the stage of recruitment, treatment, and data analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]