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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Herbal therapy for treating rheumatoid arthritis

Information

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD002948.pub2Copy DOI
Database:
  1. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Version published:
  1. 16 February 2011see what's new
Type:
  1. Intervention
Stage:
  1. Review
Cochrane Editorial Group:
  1. Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group

Copyright:
  1. Copyright © 2011 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Authors

  • Melainie Cameron

    Correspondence to: School of Exercise Science, Australian Catholic University, Banyo, Australia

    [email protected]

  • Joel J Gagnier

    Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

  • Sigrun Chrubasik

    University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Herbal Medicines Research and Education Centre, Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

Contributions of authors

Christine Little, Tessa Parsons, Melainie Cameron, Sigrun Chrubasik, and Joel Gagnier selected literature. Melainie Cameron, Sigrun Chrubasik, Tessa Parsons, Anette Bluemle, and Joel Gagnier extracted data from some studies. Melainie Cameron conducted the pooled data analyses. All authors wrote the updated review, then checked, proof‐read and approved the updated review.

Sources of support

Internal sources

  • Victoria University, Australia.

  • University of Freiburg, Germany.

External sources

  • No sources of support supplied

Declarations of interest

None known.

Acknowledgements

The review authors would like to thank the Cochrane Musculoskeletal editorial team for their editorial suggestions. We also thank Louise Falzon, Trial Search Coordinator, for updating the search strategy and executing the updated search, and Renea Johnston, Managing Editor for assistance with compilation of the Summary of Findings tables and Plain Language Summary. We are deeply grateful to Christine Little, Tessa Parsons and Anette Bluemle for their contributions to earlier versions of this review.

Version history

Published

Title

Stage

Authors

Version

2011 Feb 16

Herbal therapy for treating rheumatoid arthritis

Review

Melainie Cameron, Joel J Gagnier, Sigrun Chrubasik

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD002948.pub2

2000 Oct 23

Herbal therapy for treating rheumatoid arthritis

Review

Christine V Little, Tessa Parsons

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD002948

Differences between protocol and review

For this review update, we expanded inclusion criteria so studies that included an active control as well as placebo controls, randomised controlled trials published in any language, and unpublished reports of randomised controlled trials were eligible for inclusion. Changes to methods of quality assessment (replaced by assessment of 'risk of bias') and analysis and presentation of results are consistent with updated Cochrane Collaboration and Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group methods introduced since the original review.

One study included in the original review recruited participants with any form of arthritic disease (Mills 1996). This study was excluded from this update because data for the subgroup of participants with rheumatoid arthritis could not be distinguished from the overall data reported. In the original review, studies of the same herbal therapy that used the same outcome measure were pooled regardless of the length of the intervention period. In this update, these data and comparisons have been subgrouped according to intervention time, rather than pooled. The table of herbal interventions has been extensively revised so that it offers detailed information about the herbal medicines, including full botanical names, the part of the plant used, details of extraction methods, drug:extract ratios and co‐active principles. Three further tables have been added; two cover current understandings of the mechanisms of action of herbal therapies and the other table summarises the clinical implications arising from this review.