Integrated Chinese and western medicine for SLE: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND The efficacy and safety of integrated Chinese and western medicine in the treatment of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) have not been systematically evaluated. METHODS This systematic review and meta-analysis will be performed and reported according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We will search PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Database WangFang, VIP, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) for potentially eligible studies from their inception to Dec. 2020, and we will select all the eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of the integrated Chinese and western medicine for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. All the studies will be screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and meta-analysis will be conducted using Review Manager V.5.3. and Stata V.12.0. The primary endpoint was the clinical efficacy rate, the secondary outcomes were SLEDAI score, adverse reaction rate, and laboratory test parameters (white blood cells, complement C3). RESULTS The results of this study will systematically evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the integrated Chinese and western medicine in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea. CONCLUSION The efficacy and safety of integrated Chinese and western medicine will be systematically evaluated in this paper, thus providing evidence for the clinical application of this therapy. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION This study is a systematic review, which is based on the published studies, so examination and agreement by the ethics committee are not required in this study. We intend to publish the study results in a journal or conference presentations. OPEN SCIENCE FRAMEWORK OSFREGISTRATION NUMBER https://osf.io/mabxh.