Treatment of cholecystitis with Chinese herbal medicines: A systematic review of the literature

Table 1 Literature type

	Acute cholecystitis	Chronic cholecystitis	Acute exacerbation of chronic cholecystitis	Cholecystitis complicated by cholelithiasis	Other diseases complicated by cholecystitis	Total
Clinical trial study	292	512	16	543	105	1468
Treatment and care	3	0	0	12	0	15
Animal and fundamental experimental research	3	3	0	17	1	24
Theoretical research	3	10	0	10	2	25
Other therapies	3	12	0	7	0	22
Relevant drug research	2	4	1	2	0	9
Total	306	541	17	591	108	1563

Table 2 Evidence strength analysis

	Acute cholecystitis (H/M)	Chronic cholecystitis (H/M)	Acute exacerbation of chronic cholecystitis	Cholecystitis complicated by cholelithiasis (H/M)	Other diseases complicated by cholecystitis (H/M)	Total	Evidence level
Systemic review	0	0	0	0	0	0	I
RCT	35 (2/2)	62 (6/0)	6 (1/0)	28 (1/1)	5 (1/0)	136	II
Case-control	19 (1/0)	40 (2/1)	1	37 (4/1)	4 (1/0)	101	III
Case report	203 (9/3)	336 (26/0)	7 (1/0)	344 (27/1)	71 (7/0)	961	IV
Experience reports/Masters experience	31 (2/0)	54 (4/0)	2	109 (7/2)	20 (1/0)	216	V
Review	5 (1/0)	19	0	25 (2/0)	5 (1/0)	54	V
Total	293	511	16	543	105	1468

H: Core Chinese Journals; M: MEDLINE; Foreign literatures number = 9: 2 pieces of Literatures in Bulgarian, 1 in Russian, 6 in English (SCI), 1 RCT Chronic Cholecystitis, 2 case reports, 1 case comparison, 1 review (cholecystitis), 1 case report (other complicated cholecystitis). RCT: Randomized controlled trial.

Table 3 Distribution of the first authors' hospital level

	Acute cholecystitis	Chronic cholecystitis	Acute exacerbation of chronic cholecystitis	Cholecystitis complicated by cholelithiasis	Other diseases complicated by cholecystitis	Total
Level-3 hospitals	107	149	10	163	35	464
Level-2 hospitals	106	197	5	193	37	538
Level-1 hospitals and others	76	132	1	163	28	400
Medical schools and universities	4	26	0	16	5	51
Research institutes	0	7	0	6	2	15