Objective To assess the quality of randomised controlled trials on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for coronary heart disease (CHD) angina published from 1977 to 2002. Method We did electronic search in Medline, Embase and hand searched 83 journals of traditional Chinese medicine (the earliest published in 1977 and the latest in June 2002). We assessed the quality of obstained studies. Results Four hundred and forty articles met the criteria,of which 33 (7.5%) described randomization. None of them mentioned allocation concealment; 94.77% (417 studies) mentioned diagnosis criteria; only one mentioned the calculation basement of sample size; 84.09% (370 studies) mentioned comparability of baseline. Fifty three studies (12.05%) noted double-blind; 28 studies used single blind. Twenty-five studies used double-blind. Drop-outs were described in 7 cases without intention-to-treat (ITT); 159 studies applied statistical methods properly, while 4 did not. Ten studies never mentioned statistical methods; 73.18％ (322 studies) used forms to express their results. Conclusions Till now, the quantity and quality of RCTs of traditional Chinese medicine for coronary heart disease angina were inadequate. Some well designed scientific methods were not adequately applied.
