Objective?To assess the effectiveness and safety of diclofenac, one of the routine-used NSAIDs, in preventing post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis (PEP). Methods Firstly, the electronic searches were conducted to retrieve Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, OVID, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data. Secondly, 12 kinds of specific Chinese journals like Chinese Journal of Gastroenterology and conference proceedings were hand-searched till June 2011, and all references in all included trials were searched, too. The RCTs on diclofenac for preventing PEP were identified and retrieved. The systematic review was conducted by using methods and principles recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration. Results A total of 5 RCTs involving 675 PEP patients were included. The Meta-analysis showed that diclofenac might reduce the incidence of PEP (OR=0.41, 95%CI 0.18 to 0.95, P=0.04), but the sensitivity analysis indicated this result was not stable. No evidence showed diclofenac could reduce the incidence of severe PEP (OR=0.40, 95%CI 0.08 to 2.06, P=0.27). And no adverse reactions related to the drug were reported. Conclusion Diclofenac may be safe and effective in reducing the incidence of PEP, but it has no significant effect on preventing severe PEP. Considering the methodological and scale limitation of included studies, this conclusion still needs to be proved by more large-scale and high-quality RCTs.
Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of endoscopic variceal ligation (EVL) versus endoscopic variceal sclerotherapy (EVS) for acute esophageal variceal bleeding in patients with liver cirrhosis.Methods We searched CBMdisc (1979 to 2006), CNKI (1994 to 2006) and VIP for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs comparing EVL and EVS for acute esophageal variceal bleeding patients with liver cirrhosis. The methodogical quality of included trials was critically assessed and the data were extracted by two reviewers, working independently. The Cochrane Collaboration’s RevMan 4.2.7 software was used for meta-analysis. Results Nine RCTs involving a total of 1371 patients were included: 688 in EVL group and 683 in EVS. The meta-analyses showed a significant reduction for mortality [RR 0.60, 95%CI (0.36, 0.98)], and non-significant reductions in complications, rebleeding and emergency hemostasis in the EVL group compared to the EVS group. EVS was non-significantly better than EVL for the rate of eradication varices and recurrent varices. Conclusions For acute esophageal variceal bleeding in patients with liver cirrhosis, EVL has better effect and fewer complications than EVS. However, because the quality of included RCTs was poor, the strength of our conclusions was limited. Further high-quality RCTs are required.
ObjectivesTo systematically review the safety and efficacy of aspirin in primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases.MethodsPubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, CBM, WanFang Data, CNKI and VIP databases were electronically searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of aspirin for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases from inception to November 2018. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies, and then, meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsA total of 13 RCTs involving 164 225 participants were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that: aspirin reduced the risk of myocardial infarction (RR=0.85, 95%CI 0.75 to 0.97, P=0.01), ischemic stroke (RR=0.86, 95%CI 0.79 to 0.95, P=0.002) and risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (RR=0.90, 95%CI 0.86 to 0.94, P<0.000 1). However, all-cause mortality (RR=0.97, 95%CI 0.93 to 1.02, P=0.22) and cardiovascular mortality (RR=0.93, 95%CI 0.85 to 1.02, P=0.11) were not reduced. Additionally, it increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke (RR=1.29, 95%CI 1.02 to 1.64, P=0.03), major bleeding (RR=1.43, 95%CI 1.31 to 1.56, P<0.000 01) and gastrointestinal bleeding (RR=1.59, 95%CI 1.33 to 1.90, P<0.000 01).ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that aspirin can reduce the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events and myocardial infarction during primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, while increase the risk of bleeding, especially gastrointestinal bleeding. Therefore, its potential benefits may be offset. Due to limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more high-quality studies are required to verify the above conclusion.