A Meta analysis on the effects of the treatment for oligoasthenozoospermia by the method of tonifying kidney and spleen

Objective To review the clinical effectiveness of the method of tonifying kidney and spleen on oligoasthenozoospermia by systematic review. Methods All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which relate to the treatment on oligoasthenozoospermia by the method of tonifying kidney and spleen were searched from CNKI, VIP and Wanfang database, from database foundation to 2014.12. Strict inclusion criteria, search strategy and exclusion criteria about literature were established, methodological evaluation was taken on included literature in addition. All statistical analysis was performed with RevMan 5.0 software. Results Eight RCTs meeting the criteria were selected, including 838 cases totally, they were divided into the simple tonifying kidney subgroup and the western medicine subgroup according to the different reference drugs, but we found that there were two studies among included studies which there was a significant discrepancy between each group, therefore we made a sensitivity analysis in allusion to the simple tonifying kidney subgroup. Meta analysis showed that the clinical efficiency of tonifying kidney and spleen group were superior to the simple tonifying kidney group (P<0.05) and the western medicine group (P<0.05) on improving the sperm concentration and the percentage of a level sperm. Conclusion There was the tendency about the clinical efficacy of the method of tonifying kidney and spleen was superior to the simple tonifying kidney and the western medicine on improving the sperm concentration and the percentage of a level sperm, all included literatures were low in quality, there were large differences among the several data, and sensitivity analysis suggest the result of our study has a low stability, therefore we look forward to more rigorous and professional RCTs in order to prove the clinical efficacy of the method of tonifying kidney and spleen. Key words: Tonifying kidney and spleen; Oligoasthenozoospermia; Randomized controlled trial (RCT); Meta analysis