Has aidi injection the attenuation and synergistic efficacy to gemcitabine and cisplatin in non-small cell lung cancer? A meta-analysis of 36 randomized controlled trials

Gemcitabine and cisplatin is the first line chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer with high toxicity. Aidi injection is a cantharidin and astragalu-based Chinese herbs injection in China. Has Aidi injection attenuation and synergistic efficacy to GP in NSCLC? There is lack of strong evidence to prove it. To further reveal it, we systematically evaluated all related studies. We collected all studies about Aidi injection plus GP for NSCLC in Medline, Embase, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, Wanfang Database, CBM, CCRCT, Chi-CTR, and US-clinical trials (established to June 2015). We evaluated their quality according to the Cochrane evaluation handbook of randomized controlled trials (5.1.0), extracted data following the PICO principles and synthesized the data by Meta analysis. Thirty six RCTs with 2582 NSCLC patients were included, with general methodological quality in most trials. The RR values and their 95% CI of Meta-analysis for ORR, DCR and QOL were as following: 1.28 (1.17, 1.39), 1.11(1.07, 1.15) and 1.81 (1.61, 2.03). The merged RD values and their 95% CI of Meta-analysis for myelosuppression, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, neurotoxicity and nausea and vomiting were as following: -0.23(-0.29, -0.17), -0.17(-0.22, -0.11), -0.13(-0.18, -0.08), -0.06(-0.17, 0.05) and -0.15(-0.21, -0.10). To compare with GP alone, all differences were statistically significant. The available evidence indicates that Aidi injection plus GP can significantly increase the clinical efficacy and improve the QOL of patients with NSCLC. Aidi injection can reduce myelosuppression, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia neurotoxicity and nausea/vomiting. These indirectly reveal that Aidi injection has the attenuation and synergistic efficacy to GP chemotherapy in NSCLC.