Safflower yellow injection combined with conventional therapy in treating unstable angina pectoris: a meta-analysis

To evaluate the clinical efficacy of safflower yellow injection combined with conventional therapy in treating unstable angina pectoris.

We searched online databases: Chinese journal full-text database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database, Chinese journal full-text database, Pubmed, ScienceDirect, Embase, and the Cochrane Library with manual-screening of relevant literature. Eligible randomized controlled trials (RCT) on angina pectoris were included. We conducted meta-analysis using the RevMan 5.1 software from The Cochrane Collaboration. We treated the relief rate of angina symptoms and electrocardiograph (ECG) as evaluation.

Seven articles, including in 1134 patients, were enrolled after the evaluation. There was no significant heterogeneity among the studies (chi2 = 1.08, df = 6, P = 0.98, I2 = 0%). The safflower yellow injection with conventional therapy has a higher effective rate than the control group in relieving the symptoms of angina pectoris [odds ratio (OR)= 2.95, 95% (CI) (1.81, 4.81)] and improving ischemic ECG [OR = 2.85, 95% CI (1.67, 4.86)]. The difference was statistically significant in the "80 mg dosage" and "100 mg dosage" subgroups (P < 0.05) for improving clinical symptoms and ECG. The funnel graphic was nearly symmetrical. Sensitivity analysis suggested that the results were stable.

Safflower yellow injection as an adjunct therapy with conventional drugs shows advantages in easing the clinical symptoms of unstable angina and improving ECG over basic therapy alone. However, the conclusions should be interpreted with care until more high-quality RCTs are reported.