Is Chinese Herbal Medicine Effective for Elderly Isolated Systolic Hypertension? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective:To study the efficacy of Chinese medicine(CM) on isolated systolic hypertension.Methods:Seven electronic databases were searched for randomized controlled trials(RCTs) published until August 2015.Subgroup analyses and meta-analysis were performed to assess the efficacy and safety of the included studies.Results:A total of 24 studies,including 2,096 patients(1,058 patients in the intervention group and 1,038 in the control group),were evaluated in the final analysis.Compared with a conventional therapy used alone,CM as additional intervention was more effective on systolic blood pressure[mean difference(MD)=-0.66,95%confidence interval(CI)=(-0.97,-0.36),P<0.00001]and significantly diminished the pulse pressure[MD=-7.49,Cl=(-12.69,-2.29),P<0.00001].However it showed no additional benefit on diastolic blood pressure[MD=1.16,CI=(0.02,2.29),P=0.87].Adverse events were not explicitly reported in most RCTs.Conclusions:CM might be a promising approach for the elderly with isolated systolic hypertension,while the evidence for CM employed alone was insufficient.Considering the inherent limitations of the included studies,larger high-quality RCTs with extensive follow-up should be performed to validate our findings in the future.