Chinese herbal medicine for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome-associated diarrhea: A protocol for the systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

Diarrhea can occur at an early or advanced stage of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) as a usual symptom in people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. While it is usually not fatal, it can influence patients' quality of life seriously. It has shown to be efficacious and improves people's immune status to a certain extent to treat HIV/AIDS-related diarrhea on the basis of syndrome differentiation and treatment or Chinese herbs plus conventional treatment. Therefore, it may have a good application potential. Here, we outline a protocol for the systematic review of this health-care intervention, with the aim to evaluate the beneficial effects and safety of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for patients who suffer from HIV/AIDS-associated diarrhea. Randomized controlled trials that compare Chinese herbs with placebo or other effective treatments will be searched and included, in spite of publication status or language. The primary outcomes include diarrhea frequency and fecal character. The databases we will search as follows: China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (SinoMed), Wanfang Data, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, PubMed and the CENTRAL in Cochrane Library. Two authors will respectively conduct the screening of trials, data extraction, and use the Cochrane risk of bias tool to assess the methodological quality. We will analyze the data and perform a meta-analysis if possible. We intend to identify potential therapeutic modalities that may be of benefit to inform clinical practice by supplying existing evidence of the helpful effects and safety of TCM to treat patients suffering from HIV/AIDS-associated diarrhea.