The Efficacy of Brucea javanica Oil Emulsion Injection as Adjunctive Therapy for Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Purpose. To evaluate the efficacy of Brucea javanica oil emulsion injection (BJOEI) in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) during chemotherapy. Method. Electronic database of EMBASE and PubMed and the conference proceeding of ASCO, CNKI, CBMdisc, VIP, and Wanfang database were searched to select RCTs comparing BJOEI plus chemotherapy with chemotherapy alone in the treatment of advanced NSCLC, until June 1, 2016. Two reviewers independently performed the analysis according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Review Manager 5.3 and STATA 12.0 were employed for data analysis. Result. Twenty-one studies including 2234 cases were included. The pooled result indicated that there were significant differences in ORR (RR = 1.25; 95% CI: 1.14–1.36; P < 0.00001), improvement of QOL (RR = 1.87; 95% CI: 1.63–2.15; P < 0.00001), nausea and vomiting (RR = 0.67; 95% CI: 0.46–0.98; P = 0.04), leukopenia (RR = 0.63; 95% CI: 0.52–0.75; P < 0.00001), but there was no difference in thrombocytopenia (RR = 0.78; 95% CI: 0.49–1.23; P = 0.29). Begg's funnel plot and Egger's test indicated that no publication bias was found. The sensitivity analysis suggested the stability of the pooled result. Conclusion. The addition of BJOEI can enhance efficacy, improve QOL, and decrease incidence of nausea and vomiting and leukopenia for advanced NSCLC patients. However, higher quality RCTs are needed to further confirm this finding.