OBJECTIVETo assess the efficacy and safety of compound matrine injection combined with cisplatin chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer.

METHODIt was searched relevant randomized Controlled trials (RCTs) from Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, CBM, and CNKI etc. The search was finished in February 11, 2010. And it was traced the related references and experts in this field, besides it was also communicated with other authors in order to obtain some certain information that had not been found. RCTs of compound matrine injection combined with cisplatin chemotherapy versus cisplatin chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer were included. It was evaluated the quality of these included studies and analyzed data by Cochrane Collaboration's RevMan 5.0 software.

RESULTTen RCTs were included meta analysis results suggested that compared with chemotherapy alone, the combination had a statistically significant benefit in healing efficacy (OR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.26-3.13, P < 0.05) and improving quality of life (OR = 3.83, 95% CI: 2.38-6.15, P < 0.001). Besides, the combination also had a statistically significant benefit in myelosuppression, white blood cell (OR = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.32-0.62, P < 0.001), hematoblast (OR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.26-0.60, P < 0.001), liver function (OR = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.15-0.75, P < 0.05) and in reducing the gastroenteric reaction (OR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.16-0.63, P = 0.001), decreasing the of CD3 ( MD = 2.96, 95% CI: 1.724. 20, P < 0.001), CD4 (MD = 9.04, 95% CI: 7.87-10.20, P < 0.001), CD4/CD8 (MD = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.41-0.54, P < 0.001) and NK cells (MD = 5.90, 95% CI: 4.53-7.26, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONCompared with cisplatin chemotherapy, compound matrine injection combined with cisplatin chemotherapy can significantly improve the efficiency, QOL and myelosuppression, and reduce adverse events.