Objective: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of compound Kushen injection (CKI) as adjunctive treatment of patients with advanced gastric cancer (AGC). Method: A computer-based online search of literatures prior to March 2012 was performed in Medline

the Cochrane Library

EMBASE

CENTRAL

PubMed

Google Scholar

CNKI

CBM

VIP and Wanfang by using a combination of synonyms for compound kushen injection

gastric cancer and chemotherapy. Randomized controlled trials(RCT)of CKI as adjunctive treatment for AGC were included. Bias risks of included RCT studies were evaluated and homogeneity studies were Meta-analyzed by Revman 5.1 software. Result: Twelve RCT studies including 1 004 patients were involved in this research. Pooling data of the Meta-analysis indicated that compared with chemotherapy alone

the combination had a statistically significant benefit in total effect rate [OR=1.51

95%CI (1.18

1.94)

P=0.001]

quality of life improvement rate [OR=1.95

95%CI (1.49

2.55)

P<0.000 01] and improved the incidence of Leukopenia [OR=0.36

95%CI (0.26

0.50)

P<0.000 01]. Conclusion: The results of this Meta-analysis confirmed that CKI plus chemotherapy shows a good efficacy and an acceptable safety profile in AGC patients

and may prove to be worthy of widespread use.