Comparative efficacy and safety of wenxin granule combined with antiarrhythmic drugs for atrial fibrillation: A protocol for a systematic review and network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The combination of Chinese patent medicine Wenxin Granules (WXG) and antiarrhythmic drugs has been widely used in the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF), but the results are controversial. This study will conduct a network meta-analysis (NMA) based on data from randomized controlled trials to evaluate the efficacy and safety of WXG combined with ADDs (amiodarone, metoprolol, propafenone, bisoprolol, or other antiarrhythmic drugs) in the treatment of AF, which will perform comparisons or rankings of efficacy among the currently available therapeutic schemes in order to provide evidence to determine the optimal threshold and treatment regimen to AF patients. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A comprehensive systematic literature search will be conducted in Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (SinoMed), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and WanFang database for randomized controlled trials about the WXG with ADDs. The NMA will be conducted following the PRISMA-NMA guidelines. Statistical analyses will be conducted by using Stata software (version 14.0) and RevMan software (version 5.3). RESULTS: The results of this NMA will provide a high-quality evidence for the efficacy of WXG combined with ADDs in the treatment of AF, and a ranking of the therapeutic classes will also be presented. CONCLUSION: The protocol will provide updated evidence for the application of WXG for AF.