Catheter-directed thrombolysis in the treatment of acute deep venous thrombosis: a meta-analysis

We performed a meta-analysis for systematic evaluation of the status quo of catheter thrombolysis for the treatment of acute lower limb deep vein thrombosis in China. We searched the China Biomedical bibliographic database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Weipu full-text electronic journals, Wanfang full-text database, and Medline (1990 through June 2011) for clinical randomized controlled trials of catheter-directed thrombolysis and superficial venous thrombolysis to compare their efficacies for the treatment of acute deep vein thrombosis. The results were analyzed by using the Cochrane-recommended RevMan 4.2 software package, and the odds ratio (OR) was used as the combined measure of efficacy. The search retrieved 8 randomized controlled trials, and meta-analysis using the total rate of effective treatment as the clinical observation index found that the combined OR for the catheter thrombolysis group versus the superficial venous thrombolysis group was significant (P < 0.01; OR = 11.78; 95% confidence interval = 6.99-19.87). In conclusion, the meta-analysis indicated that catheter thrombolysis was more effective than superficial venous thrombolysis for the treatment of acute deep vein thrombosis in the lower limb in Chinese individuals. However, the included trials were only of medium quality, so more rational and scientific clinical trials are needed to validate this conclusion.