Objective To assess the therapeutic effect and safety of Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule （Capsule for removing blood stasis in the chest） on angina pectoris in patients with coronary heart disease （CHD）. Methods Published literatures

till October 2010

in Chinese and English

on Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule treating angina pectoris in CHD patients

were searched from Cochrane library

PubMed

CBM

CNKI

VIP

CMCI

etc. Included were randomize controlled trials （RCTs） on the therapeutic effect of Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule or Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule plus conventional western medicines in comparison with the conventional western medicine treatment on angina pectoris in CHD patients. The data were extracted according to the Table of Data Extraction. The methodological quality of the included literatures was evaluated by Jadad criterion. The data were analyzed with RevMan 5.0.1 software. The outcome was shown as relative risk （RR） and its 95% confidence interval （CI）. Results Totally 14 literatures of RCTs including 1 001 patients met the inclusion criterion

of which

only one double-blind RCT was of high quality in methodology

and others were low. Compared with the conventional therapy of western medicine

the RR of ineffective rate of angina pectoris of Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule was 0.93

and the 95% CI was between 0.48 and 1.81

the RR of ineffective rate of electrocardiogram （ECG） was 0.98

and the 95% CI was between 0.71 and 1.36

and their difference was not statistically significant. Compared with the conventional therapy of western medicine

the RR of ineffective rate of angina pectoris of Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule plus conventional western medicines was 0.31

and the 95% CI was between 0.21 and 0.45

the RR of ineffective rate of ECG was 0.61

and the 95% CI was between 0.49 and 0.75

and the difference between was statistically significant. There was no serious adverse effect found in the patients treated by Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule. Conclusion Xuefu Zhuyu Capsule plus conventional western medicines is effective in reducing the symptoms of angina pectoris in CHD patients and the ineffective rate of ECG improvement with lowered adverse effect. However

because of the lower methodological quality of included literatures and publication bias

the very conclusion needs further confirmation by more rationally designed RCTs with large samples in multicentres.