Efficacy and safety of Xihuang pill for lung cancer: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Xihuang pill, a famous traditional Chinese medicine formulation, is a broad-spectrum anti-tumor drug and has been widely used for the treatment of lung cancer in China. The aim of this study is to systematically investigate the efficacy and safety of Xihuang pill for the treatment of lung cancer. METHODS: We will perform the comprehensive literature search in the following databases from their inceptions to August 2020 for data extraction: PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Embase, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database, Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database. Cochrane Risk of Bias tool will be used to assess the risk of bias of included studies. The RevMan 5.4 and Stata 16.0 software will be applied for statistical analyses. Statistical heterogeneity will be computed by I(2) tests. Sensitivity analysis will be conducted to evaluate the stability of the results. The publication bias will be evaluated by funnel plots and Egger test. The quality of evidence will be assessed by the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluate system (GRADE) system. RESULTS: The results of our research will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. CONCLUSION: The conclusion of this study will provide evidence to show whether Xihuang pill is an effective intervention for patient with lung cancer. OSF REGISTRATION NUMBER: 10.17605/OSF.IO/W2GHN