Comparison of efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese patent medicine in the treatment of vitiligo in children or adults A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis

Background: Vitiligo is a common depigmented skin disease in children or adults, which usually causes considerable psychological burden to life and work for the reason that it affects appearance. The conventional therapies, including external 308 nm excimer laser therapy along with oral administration of western medicine, are associated with distinct disadvantages. Notably, traditional Chinese patent medicine (TCPM) exerts a vital part in treating vitiligo. Currently, no existing research has examined the effectiveness and safety of different TCPMs in treating vitiligo among either child or adult patients. As a result, the present network meta-analysis was carried out for the systematic comparison of the effectiveness of different TCPMs in treating vitiligo. Methods: The electronic databases, like PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, Chinese Scientific Journals Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database and China BioMedical Literature, were searched systemically by 2 reviewers independently from inception to August 2020 to identify relevant randomized controlled trial (RCTs) according to our study inclusion criteria. In data extraction, risk of bias among those enrolled articles was also detected. Besides, the Bayesian network meta-analysis method was utilized to evaluate the evidence and data collected. This adopted the STATA and Win BUGS software for analysis. Results: The present work assessed the safety and efficacy of different TCPMs in treating vitiligo among child or adult patients. Conclusion: Our findings can shed precious lights on applying TCPMs in clinic and help the clinicians to formulate the efficient diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Ethics and dissemination: No ethical approval was needed in this study. INPLASY registration number: INPLASY2020120050.