OBJECTIVETo assess the clinical efficacy and safety of Shuxuetong injection against progressive ischaemic stroke.

METHODRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi randomized controlled trials (quasi-RCTs), which focused on treating patients with progressive ischaemic stroke using Shuxuetong injection were identified from Cochrane library, Medline, EMbase, CBM database, CNKI database, VIP database and Wanfang database. Data was extracted and evaluated with designed form. RevMan 5.1 software was used for data analysis.

RESULTEleven RCTs with 972 patients were included in this review. Only one research reported the mortality rate. None of the trials mentioned dependency of the patients during the follow-up period. The results of Meta analysis were listed as follows. Compared with normal treatment measures, total effective rate of 11 RCTs suggested that Shuxuetong were more effective with OR 4.46, 95% CI [3.02-6.59]. A greater difference in patients using Shuxuetong injection was found in 7 RCTs about the NDS with MD 5.86, 95% CI [4.80-6.93], compared with normal treatment measures. Researches with ADR/AE information of Shuxuetong injection showed that the symptoms of ADR/AE were moderate.

CONCLUSIONConclusions from this review may have a high risk of bias because of the low quality of the researches, hence it was not adequate to draw any reliable conclusions about the efficacy of Shuxuetong injection in progressive ischaemic stroke. More trials with high quality are required in the following researches.