Evaluation on HBeAg conversion time when treating chronic hepatitis B patients with combination of lamivudine and traditional Chinese medicine

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of the combined use of traditional Chinese medicine and lamivudine (LMD) in treating chronic hepatitis B patients, and to follow the serological response for six months or longer. METHODS: CNKI, Wanfang data, VIP data, CBMdisk, MEDLINE, EMBASE, BIOSIS and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials database and literature were searched, to include randomized controlled trails (RCT) that used LMD alone or combined with traditional Chinese medicine. RevMan 4.2 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: The Meta analysis of 7 trails demonstrated that the HBeAg conversion rate in treatment group was higher than those from the control group, and the differences were statistically significant at 6, 9, 12 months. CONCLUSION: Data demonstrated that early intervention of traditional Chinese medicine might increase the HBeAg conversion rate but conclusion needs to be more specific to the types of trials.