Meta-analysis of the efficacy in treatment of primary sjögren's syndrome: Traditional Chinese Medicine vs Western Medicine.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to Western Medicine in the treatment of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). METHODS: We collected randomized controlled trials of TCM vs Western Medicine for the treatment of pSS in Chinese and foreign databases. The study quality was evaluated as suggested in the Cochrane Handbook. The Meta-analysis was performed using Review Manager 5.0 statistical software. RESULTS: A total of 31 randomized controlled trials with 2137 cases were retrieved. The efficiencies of TCM and control treatments were 87.18% and 65.63% , respectively. The results of heterogeneity tests showed that the data were homogeneous (P = 0.83), thus a fixed effects model was used for analysis. The results revealed an odds ratio of 3.74 with a 95% confidence interval of 2.99-4.69. The overall effectiveness value was 11.48 (P < 0.000 01). These results suggest the efficacy of TCM therapy for pSS better than Western Medicine. CONCLUSION: Although our findings reveal that the TCM treatment of pSS had significant advantages over its counterpart, there were some flaws in the studies included. The findings warrant further investigation.