Clinical Efficacy and Safety of Tanreqing Injection for Pulmonary Infection in Patients with Tuberculosis: A Meta-Analysis

Background Tanreqing injection (TRQ) is often used in the treatment of pulmonary infection in patients with tuberculosis (TB). But its efficacy and safety are still unclear; to further reveal its efficacy and safety, the authors systematically evaluated all relevant trials. Methods The authors searched published trials using the search strategy as (Tanreqing OR "Tanreqing injection") AND ("Tuberculosis" [MeSH] OR Tuberculosis OR TB) in Embase, PubMed, CNKI, VIP, Wanfang Database, CBM and CENTRAL, and ongoing trials in Chinese and U.S. clinical trials and World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO-ICTRP) (established to January 2017). The authors evaluated the methodological bias risk of all included trials using the Cochrane evaluation handbook of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (5.1.0), extracted data following the PICO principles, and synthesized the data using meta-analysis. Results Twenty-six RCTs involving 2404 patients were included. In TRQ alone versus antibiotics, the merged risk ratio (RR) values and their confidence interval (95% CI) of meta-analysis for overall efficacy, lesion absorption, and bacterial clearance were as follows: 1.05 (0.99-1.10), 0.98 (0.89-1.08), and 1.36 (1.09-1.70). All differences were not statistically significant. In TRQ plus antibiotics versus antibiotics, the RR values and their 95% CI of overall efficacy, lesion absorption, and bacterial clearance were as follows: 1.17 (1.10-1.25), 1.24 (1.11-1.38), and 1.61 (1.36-1.90). All differences were statistically significant. Except for the bacterial clearance, sensitivity analyses showed that the overall efficacy had good stability. Conclusions TRQ may have the same overall efficacy as antibiotics in pulmonary infection in patients with TB. TRQ plus antibiotics may improve the clinical efficacy. TRQ may have synergistic effect to antibiotics through bacteriostatic activity and eliminating inflammatory mediators. Its antibacterial activity may be better than some antibiotics and does not increase adverse drug reaction. But all these need new evidences for further investigation.