Traditional Chinese Medicine Decoction for Acute Pancreatitis in Elderly Patients: A Protocol for Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background Acute pancreatitis is the most common disease of the pancreas, and is a common cause of acute abdominal pain. Elderly patients with acute pancreatitis are more likely to develop complications,and they experience substantially higher mortality than the middle-aged patients. Although many studies have shown that traditional Chinese medicine are effective for the treatment of acute pancreatitis, the efficacy and safety of different traditional Chinese medicine decoctions for acute pancreatitis in elderly patients are not fully clarified. In addition, because many traditional Chinese medicine decoctions are available for the pancreatitis, the selection of an appropriate decoction has become a pressing issue. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of different traditional Chinese medicine decoction for elderly patients with acute pancreatitis by using network meta-analysis. Methods Random clinical studies on traditional Chinese medicine decoction for acute pancreatitis will be searched using the following databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Wan Fang Database, VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, Medline, and Clinical Trial Register, from their inception to June 2022. Network meta-analyses will be performed to examine the efficacy of different traditional Chinese medicine decoction in the treatment of acute pancreatitis. Results This study will evaluate the effectiveness of different traditional Chinese medicine decoction in elderly patients with acute pancreatitis. Conclusion Results from this study may contribute to provide evidence for selecting an appropriate traditional Chinese medicine decoction for elderly patients with acute pancreatitis.