中国结合医学杂志（英文版）Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine

Author Name	Affiliation	E-mail
CAO Yu, LIU Long-tao
WU Min	Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing (100053), China	wumin19762000@126.com

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Abstract:

Objective: To study the efficacy of Chinese medicine (CM) on isolated systolic hypertension. Methods: Seven electronic databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published until August 2015. Subgroup analyses and meta-analysis were performed to assess the efficacy and safety of the included studies. Results: A total of 24 studies, including 2,096 patients (1,058 patients in the intervention group and 1,038 in the control group), were evaluated in the final analysis. Compared with a conventional therapy used alone, CM as additional intervention was more effective on systolic blood pressure [mean difference (MD)=–0.66, 95% confidence interval (CI)=(–0.97, –0.36), P<0.00001] and significantly diminished the pulse pressure [MD=–7.49, CI=(–12.69, –2.29), P<0.00001]. However it showed no additional benefit on diastolic blood pressure [MD=1.16, CI=(0.02, 2.29), P=0.87]. Adverse events were not explicitly reported in most RCTs. Conclusions: CM might be a promising approach for the elderly with isolated systolic hypertension, while the evidence for CM employed alone was insufficient. Considering the inherent limitations of the included studies, larger high-quality RCTs with extensive follow-up should be performed to validate our findings in the future.