[Systematic review on efficacy and safety of Lanqin Oral Liquid in treatment of hand, foot and mouth disease].

Lanqin Oral Liquid is a Chinese patent medicine which contains Isatidis Radix, Scutellariae Radix, Gardeniae Fructus, Phellodendri Chinensis Cordex and Sterculiae Lychophorae Semen. It is known for the pharmaceutical effect on the upper respiratory tract infection as it is beneficial for relieving the swelling of pharyngeal. In terms of Chinese medicine, it offers a clearing action on heat and toxic materials. According to the principle of Chinese medicine, different diseases can be treated by the same therapy as long as they have the same syndrome. Based on this unique diagnosis and treatment approach, Lanqin Oral Liquid was applicable to diseases with syndrome of excessive heat in lung and stomach. It was therefore commonly be used in the therapeutic approach towards hand, foot and mouth disease as well. However, no systematic evaluation had yet been done to verify this Chinese patent medicine on the efficacy and clinical safety for the disease. In order to achieve the manner of evidence-based medicine, this study had adopted a systematic review and Meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Lanqin Oral Liquid in the treatment of hand, foot and mouth disease. All related randomized controlled trials(RCT) were searched in the following data bases: CNKI, WanFang, VIP, SinoMed, Cochrane Library and PubMed. Based on the method provided by the Cochrane collaboration, the study assessed the quality of papers selected and RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform Meta-analysis. Totally 24 studies were included with 3 491 sample size, which 1 826 cases were treatment group and 1 665 cases were control group. From the results of Meta-analysis, the total effective rate of combination of Lanqin Oral Liquid and Western medicines shown better than Western medicine alone in the treatment for hand, foot and mouth di-sease, but mild adverse event were also found(RR=1.20,95%CI[1.16,1.23],P<0.000 01). Incidence of adverse reaction between experimental and control group was statistically insignificant(RR=1.16, 95%CI[0.79, 1.70], P=0.45). No conclusion was able to made in terms of the remission time of clinical symptoms, as the studies included were not qualified for Meta-analysis. As a matter of fact, the number of existing studies related to the Lanqin Oral Liquid were limited with poor quality as well. In other words, high quality studies were essential to further evaluate the efficacy and safety of Lanqin Oral Liquid.