1,721,264 research outputs found
Traditional Chinese medicine for treatment of fibromyalgia: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials
No full textBackground: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is popular for treatment of fibromyalgia (FM) although there is a lack of comprehensive evaluation of current clinical evidence for TCM's therapeutic effect and safety.Objective: To review systematically the beneficial and harmful effects of TCM therapies for FM.Methods: We searched six English and Chinese electronic databases for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on TCM for treatment of FM. Two authors extracted data and assessed the trial quality independently. RevMan 5 software was used for data analyses with an effect estimate presented as mean difference (MD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI).Results: Twenty-five RCTs were identified with 1516 participants for this review. Seven trials (28%) were evaluated as having a low risk of bias and the remaining trials were identified as being as unclear or having a high risk of bias. Overall, ten trials were eligible for the meta-analysis, and data from remaining 15 trials were synthesized qualitatively. Acupuncture reduced the number of tender points (MD, –3.21; 95% CI –4.23 to –2.11; p<0.00001, I2=0%), and pain scores compared with conventional medications (MD, –1.78; 95% CI, –2.24 to –1.32; p<0.00001; I2=0%). Acupuncture showed no significant effect, with a random-effect model, compared with sham acupuncture (MD, –0.55; 95% CI, –1.35–0.24; p=0.17; I2=69%), on pain reduction. A combination of acupuncture and cupping therapy was better than conventional medications for reducing pain (MD, –1.66; 95% CI, –2.14 to –1.19; p<0.00001; I2=0%), and for improving depression scores with related to FM (MD, –4.92; 95% CI, –6.49 to –3.34; p<0.00001; I2=32%). Other individual trials demonstrated positive effects of Chinese herbal medicine on pain reduction compared with conventional medications. There were no serious adverse effects reported that were related to TCM therapies in these trials.Conclusions: TCM therapies appear to be effective for treating FM. However, further large, rigorously designed trials are warranted because of insufficient methodological rigor in the included trials.<br/
Comparison of effectiveness and safety between granules and decoction of Chinese herbal medicine: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials
No full textBackground: the clinical use of Chineseherbal medicine granules is gradually increasing. However, there is still no systematicreview comparing the effectiveness and safety of granules with the more traditional method of herbaldecoctions.Method: a literature search was conducted using China National Knowledge Infrastructure Databases (CNKI), Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database (VIP), China Biomedical Database web (CBM), Wanfang Database, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library until March 10, 2011. Clinical controlled trials (CCTs) including randomized trials (RCTs) comparing the effectiveness and safety between Chineseherbal medicine granules and decoction were included. Two authors conducted the literature searches, and extracted data independently. The assessment of methodological quality of RCTs was based on the risk of bias from the Cochrane Handbook, and the main outcome data of trials were analyzed by using RevMan 5.0 software. Risk ratio (RR) or mean difference (MD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) were used as effect measure.Results: 56 clinicaltrials (n = 9748) including 42 RCTs and 14 CCTs were included, and all trials were conducted in China and published in Chinese literature. 40 types of diseases and 15 syndromes of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) were reported. Granules were provided by pharmaceutical companies in 13 trials. The included RCTs were of generally low methodological quality: 7 trials reported adequate randomization methods, and 2 of these reported allocation concealment. 10 trials used blinding, of which 5 trials used placebo which were delivered double blind (blinded participants and practitioners). 98.2% (55/56) of studies showed that there was no significant statistical difference between granules and decoctions of Chineseherbal medicine for their effectiveness. No severe adverse effects in either group were reported.Conclusions: due to the poor methodological quality of most of the included trials, it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion whether both Chineseherbal medicine granules and decoctions have the same degree of effectiveness and safety in clinical practice, but this preliminary evidence supports the continued use of granules in clinical practice and research. Standardization of granules and further more rigorous pharmacological, toxicological and clinical studies are needed to demonstrate the equivalence with decoction
Chinese herbal medicine in treating primary Sjögren's syndrome: a systematic review of randomized trials
Get PDFBackground. There is no curative treatment for primary Sj¨ogren’s syndrome (PSS). Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is widely used in the treatment of PSS in China. Objective. To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of CHM for PSS. Methods. PubMed, Cochrane Library, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, Chinese Biomedical Database, Wanfang Data, and the Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of CHMor CHM plus conventional medicine for PSS compared with placebo or conventional medicine. RevMan 5.0.17 was employed to conduct data analyses and assess homogeneity. Statistical models were chosen according to heterogeneity. Results. A total of 52 RCTs were included. The overallmethodological quality of included trials was low. 49 trials reported response rates, of which 32 found significant improvements favoring CHM treatment against controls; 20 trials reported lacrimal function by Schirmer test scores, of which 16 trials reported a significant difference favoring CHM treatment. 21 trials reported salivary function by salivary flow rate, of which 10 reported significant favorable effects of CHM treatment. Other trials found no difference. The reported adverse effects of CHM included nausea, diarrhea, and other minor digestive symptoms, but more frequent adverse effects occurred in conventional medicine groups. Conclusions. Preliminary evidence from RCTs suggests the effect of CHM is promising for relieving symptoms, improvinglacrimal and salivary function in PSS. However, the poor methodological quality of the included trials means that further welldesigned, multicentered, larger trials are needed
Key elements required to publish a good article: consensus among executive editors of Traditional Chinese Medicine and integrative medicine journals - a Delphi study
No full textWhy do cancer patients use Chinese medicine? A qualitative interview study in China
No full textObjectives: To describe the reasons why cancer patients use Chinese medicine (CM) in terms of their expectations, knowledge, attitudes and barriers. To generate an understanding of the interrelationships between these factors which could explain the cancer patient's healthcare seeking behavior.Method: Twenty-six in-depth interviews and one focus group were carried out in oncology wards in Xiyuan Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. Twenty-three cancer patients participated in an in-depth interview and a focus group after providing informed consent. Interviews and focus group were tape recorded, transcribed. Atlas.ti6.0 was employed and thematic analysis was used to code and theme the information.Results: A total of 249 codes were identified, which resulted in three main themes: (1) Better outcome - most of participants reported that they believed that they would have a better outcome by using CM treatment. (2) Safe and cheap - CM appeared not to have major side effects and so could be used in the long term and CM remedies cost less. (3) Understandings of CM - Chinese people understand about CM due to its long cultural and historical context and this affected their attitude positively. They trusted CM and used it based on their understandings.Conclusions: Chinese cancer patients expected CM to improve their quality of life and contribute to achieving a better overall outcome. It is safe and relative cheap to use in the long term. Chinese patients appear to trust CM because of its cultural and historical context. More qualitative research is needed to further assess the role of CM in China
Cytoplasm and nucleus segmentation in cervical smear images using Radiating GVF Snake
No full textAbstract not availableKuan Li, Zhi Lu, Wenyin Liu, Jianping Yi
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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