Efficacy and safety of Lianhua Qingwen combined with conventional antiviral Western Medicine in the treatment of coronavirus disease (covid-19) in 2019: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) has spread to >200 countries and regions. There is no effective antiviral drug for COVID-19. Traditional Chinese medicine, such as Lianhua Qingwen, has achieved some curative effect in many countries, but its effect is not clear. We aim to assess the efficacy and safety of Lianhua Qingwen combined with Conventional antiviral Western Medicine in Clinical treatment of COVID-19 or asymptomatic infection. METHODS: The following electronic bibliographic databases will be searched to identify relevant studies: CNKI, CBM, VIP and Wanfang databases, PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane central, and clinical trial registration centers, such as China Clinical Trial Registration Center (ChiCTR), Netherlands National Trial Registration Center (NTR) and clinical trials.gov. In addition, Manual retrieval of articles, conference papers, ongoing experiments, internal reports, among others, to supplement electronic retrieval. Select all eligible studies published before May 8, 2020. According to the Cochrane Handbook “bias risk” assessment tool, bias risk is independently assessed. The independent Newcastle Ottawa scale was used to conduct methodological quality assessment of nonrandomized trials. STATA15.1 and RevMan5.3 software were used to analyze meta outcomes of different intervention measures for the treatment of new crown pneumonia and the control group (conventional antiviral western medicine treatment) clinical efficacy. RESULTS: This study will provide a relatively high-quality synthesis of current evidence of Lianhua Qingwen combined with Conventional antiviral Western Medicine in the treatment of COVID-19 from several aspects including the Clinical effective rate, CT improvement rate, severe conversion rate, antipyretic time, disappearance rate of fever symptoms, disappearance rate of cough symptoms, disappearance rate of asthenia symptoms, and adverse drug events. CONCLUSION: The conclusion of this review will provide evidence to judge whether Lianhua Qingwen combined with Conventional antiviral Western Medicine is an effective and safe intervention for COVID-19. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This systemic review will evaluate the efficacy and safety of Lianhua Qingwen combined with Conventional antiviral Western Medicine in the treatment of COVID-19. Since all the data included are published, the systematic review does not need ethical approval. INPLASY REGISTRATION NUMBER: INPLASY202060067