Li 2008.

Methods	Randomised clinical trial, China Parallel‐group design
Participants	146 participants with diagnosis of chronic hepatitis B according to Chinese guidelines 2000 (CMA 2000) Male:Female = 107:39 Mean age: 30.2 years Exclusion criteria: not stated
Interventions	Experimental intervention: kushensu, 600 mg, intravenous or intramuscular injection, once daily, 6 months (n = 70) Control intervention: no intervention (n = 76) Co‐intervention: adefovir capsules, 10 mg, once daily, 6 months
Outcomes	Adverse events considered 'not to be serious'; HBV‐DNA; HBeAg; liver function test (ALT level)
Notes	Study dates: January 2005 to June 2006 Funding information: the study was funded by municipal health bureau projects. Notes: we contacted study authors on 15 August 2018 by email and received their reply
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Study authors allocated participants by grabbing balls
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	Study authors did not seal the allocation
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Except for equally implemented co‐interventions, experimental group used Radix Sophorae flavescentis and control group received nothing, which can easily unseal the blinding
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	Study authors said that researchers collected and assessed the data
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No missing data; number of participants analysed was equal to number of participants randomised
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	We could not find the protocol for this study; study authors did not report any of the 3 primary outcomes
Other bias	Low risk	We did not identify any other potential sources of bias that would put the study at risk of bias