Tianma Gouteng Decoction combined with Qiju Dihuang Pill for the treatment of essential hypertension: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Essential hypertension is one of the risk factors of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, which can cause target organ damage such as heart, brain and kidney, and has extremely high disability rate and death rate. With the development of economy and society, the prevalence rate of hypertension in China has increased rapidly from 9.8% in the 1980s to over 30% in the 21st century. According to the data published in “China Cardiovascular Disease Report 2018,” China currently has 245 million hypertension patients. Comprehensive prevention and treatment of hypertension has become one of the major public health problems in China. The clinical practice and theoretical innovation of traditional Chinese medicine in the prevention and treatment of hypertension have been carried out for decades. Relevant literature points out that Tianma Gouteng Decoction combined with Qiju Dihuang Pill has ideal effect in the treatment of primary hypertension. However, most of the literatures are small sample studies, with uneven quality and clinical evidence, and lack of evidence-based medical evidence for clinical efficacy. Therefore, this study makes further meta-analysis of Tianma Gouteng Decoction combined with Qiju Dihuang Pill in the treatment of primary hypertension, with a view to providing evidence-based medical evidence for the treatment of primary hypertension. METHODS: We will search 3 foreign electronic databases (Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed) and 4 Chinese electronic databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WangFang Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and Chinese Scientific Journal Database) to collect potential systematic reviews from their inceptions to February 2020. The language of publication is limited to Chinese or English. First, the quality of randomized controlled trials documents included in this study was evaluated by using the improved Jadad scoring scale. Then, the 2 researchers conducted the evaluation independently according to Cochrane bias risk tools. The evidence level of the results will be evaluated by using the recommended evaluation, development and evaluation grading of recommendations assessment, development, and evaluation method. Statistical analysis will be conducted using Revman 5.3. RESULTS: The results of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. CONCLUSIONS: The conclusion of this study will provide evidence for the efficacy of Tianma Gouteng Decoction combined with Qiju Dihuang Pills in the treatment of primary hypertension due to the efficacy of western medicine alone in treating primary hypertension. REGISTRATION NUMBER PROSPERO: INPLASY202050088.