Object. Halitosis has great adverse impact on personal and social life. There is no strong evidence for the effect of Chinese medicine (CM) and combined Chinese and western medicine (CWM) on halitosis. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effective rate of CM and CWM on halitosis. Materials and Methods. Literature search in English and Chinese was conducted in PubMed, Embase, CNKI, CBM, and Wanfang database. Study selection and data collection were conducted. Risks of bias were assessed by the Cochrane tool. Synthesis of results was done by RevMan 5.3. p<0.05 was considered significant difference. Subgroup analysis by classification of halitosis and sensitivity analysis were also conducted. Results. Seventeen studies were included. The follow-up length ranged from five days to eight weeks. CM had significantly better effect than WM on intraoral halitosis (I² =24%; RR=1.21 (95% CI, 1.04, 1.40), P=0.01) and extraoral halitosis (I² =0; RR=1.39 (95% CI, 1.19, 1.63), P<0.0001). CWM had significantly better effect than WM on intraoral halitosis (I² =0; RR=1.25 (95% CI, 1.16, 1.35), P<0.00001) and extraoral halitosis (I² =0; RR=1.19 (95% CI, 1.08, 1.31), P=0.0004). Subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis showed insignificant results. Conclusion. With the limitation of our study, both CM and CWM have significantly better effect on halitosis than WM. More effort should be made to explore long-term effect of CM and CWM on halitosis. This study was registered with the PROSPERO (ID: CRD42018107229).

中文翻译：

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中药是否对口臭有效：系统评价与荟萃分析。


目的。口臭对个人和社会生活都有很大的不利影响。中药（CM）和中西医结合（CWM）对口臭的疗效尚无强有力的证据。本研究的目的是评估CM和CWM治疗口臭的有效率。材料和方法。在PubMed、Embase、CNKI、CBM、万方数据库中进行中英文文献检索。进行了研究选择和数据收集。通过 Cochrane 工具评估偏倚风险。结果的综合由RevMan 5.3完成。 p<0.05被认为是显着差异。还进行了口臭分类的亚组分析和敏感性分析。结果。纳入了十七项研究。随访时间从五天到八周不等。 CM 对口内口臭 (I ² =24%; RR=1.21 (95% CI, 1.04, 1.40), P=0.01) 和口外口臭 (I ² =0; RR=1.39 (95% CI, 1.40), P=0.01) 的效果显着优于 WM , 1.19, 1.63), P<0.0001)。 CWM 对口内口臭（I ² =0；RR=1.25（95% CI，1.16，1.35），P<0.00001）和口外口臭（I ² =0；RR=1.19（95%）的效果显着优于 WM。 CI, 1.08, 1.31), P=0.0004)。亚组分析和敏感性分析显示结果不显着。结论。由于我们研究的局限性，CM和CWM对口臭的效果均明显优于WM。应更加努力探索中药和中药治疗口臭的长期效果。本研究已在 PROSPERO 注册（ID：CRD42018107229）。