Chinese herbal formula shen-ling-bai-zhu-san to treat chronic gastritis: Clinical evidence and potential mechanisms

Table 7 GRADE evidence for the effect of Shen-ling-bai-zhu san

Quality assessment							Summary of findings					Importance
							No of patients		Effect		Quality
No of studies	Design	Limitations	Inconsistency	Indirectness	Imprecision	Other considerations	RQLQ	Control	Relative (95%CI)	Absolute
Effective rate
14	Randomized trials	Serious1	Serious2	Serious3	No serious imprecision4	None	595/670 (88.8%)	459/665 (69%)	RR 1.45 (1.22 to 1.37)	200 more per 1000 (from 152 more to 255 fewer)	Very low	Critical
								0.676		196 more per 1000 (from 149 fewer to 250 more)
Recurrence rate
3	Randomized trials	Serious1	Serious2	Serious3	No serious imprecision4	None	7/281 (2.5%)	31/281 (11%)	RR 0.24 (0.11 to 0.55)	84 fewer per 1000 (from 50 fewer to 98 fewer)	Very low	Important
								0.177		135 fewer per 1000 (from 58 fewer to 158 fewer)
HP negative conversion rate
4	Randomized trials	No serious limitations1	Very serious2	No serious indirections3	No serious imprecision4	None	207/217 (95.4%)	170/270 (78.3%)	RR 1.2 (1.11 to 1.3)	157 more per 1000 (from 86 more to 135 more)	Moderate	Important
								0.815		163 more per 1000 (from 90 more to 244 more)

¹Randomized controlled trial design method is not reported.

²The risk of bias assessment is mostly “unclear risk” because there are not enough details in articles.

³Studies come from China.

⁴There is significant heterogeneity between studies.