Clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis: a literature review

Abstract

Objective

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMOP).

Methods

We conducted a computer literature search in five databases and comprehensively extracted all kinds of information from each article. Traditional Chinese medicine inheritance support system (TCMISS) V2.5 was adopted to perform association analysis. The effectiveness, safety and methodological quality were analyzed using randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs).

Results

A total of 2880 related articles were collected. Finally, 423 articles which included 312 RCTs were included for in-depth analysis. We collected 369 Chinese medicine prescriptions and found that the top three frequently used herbs in the treatment of PMOP were Epimedii Folium (Yinyanghuo), Rehmanniae Radix Praeparata (Shudihuang) and Angelicae Sinensis Radix (Danggui). The top Chinese patent medicine was Gushukang capsule. No serious adverse reaction (AR) had been reported in the Chinese medical treatment group.

Conclusion

The effectiveness of TCM in treating PMOP needs to be further explored, and the safety is good. Therefore, high-quality evidence is urgently needed to supplement.

摘要

目的：评价中药治疗绝经后骨质疏松症(PMOP)的有效性和安全性。 方法：对5个数据库进行计算机文献检索, 综合提取每篇文献的各类信息。采用中医传承辅助系统(TCMISS)V2.5进行关联分析。采用随机对照临床试验(RCT)分析其有效性、安全性和方法学质量。 结果：共收集到相关文献2880篇。最后, 纳入423篇文章, 包括312篇随机对照研究。我们收集了369个中药处方, 发现治疗PMOP的常用中药前三位是淫羊藿叶(淫羊藿)、熟地黄(熟地黄)和当归(当归)。排在第一位的中成药是骨疏康胶囊。中药治疗组未见严重不良反应报告。 结论：中医药治疗PMOP的疗效有待进一步探讨, 安全性好。因此, 迫切需要高质量的证据加以补充。

Keywords:

• Postmenopausal osteoporosis
• traditional Chinese medicine
• literature review

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful for the financial support in the People’s Republic of China.

Potential conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China [81630106]; scientific research project of the Tianjin Education Commission [2021ZD007]; Tianjin Municipal Health Committee of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Scientific Research Project [2017110]; Tianjin Municipal Education Commission Scientific Research Project [2017KJ156].