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Chinese herbal medicines for acute pancreatitisWang Q, Guo Z, Zhao P, Wang Y, Gan T, Yang J
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SummaryChinese medicinal herbs for treating acute inflammation of the pancreasThe pancreas is a gland near the stomach that helps digestion by secreting insulin into the blood and digestive enzymes into the small intestine. Acute pancreatitis is a relatively common acute abdominal emergency with no specific therapy. It is potentially fatal. In China, traditional Chinese medicinal herbs have been used for many years to treat acute pancreatitis. This review identified fifteen randomized trials but they were poorly controlled and used different herbs. It appeared that some Chinese medicinal herbs may have positive effects on mortality but there is no strong evidence and adverse effects have not been studied.
This is a Cochrane review abstract and plain language summary, prepared and maintained by The Cochrane Collaboration, currently published in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010 Issue 1, Copyright © 2010 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.. The full text of the review is available in The Cochrane Library (ISSN 1464-780X).
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January 24. 2005 AbstractBackgroundAcute pancreatitis is a relatively common acute abdominal emergency but there is no specific therapy for it. Traditional Chinese medicinal herbs have been used widely for many years in China to treat acute pancreatitis, and several controlled trials have been carried out to investigate their efficacy. ObjectivesTo assess the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs for acute pancreatitis. Search strategyThe following electronic databases were searched, in September 2002: the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in The Cochrane Library Issue 3, 2002, MEDLINE, EMBASE, AHMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine Database) and SIGLE (System for Information on Grey Literature). Four Chinese journals and conference proceedings were handsearched. No language restriction was used. The searches were updated in October 2003, October 2004 and October 2005 but nothing new was found. The updated search in July 2008 found four new included studies. Selection criteriaAll randomized controlled trials involving traditional Chinese medicinal herbs in the treatment of acute pancreatitis and published in any language, regardless of whether they were single-blinded, double-blinded, or not blinded. Data collection and analysisData were extracted independently by two reviewers. The methodological quality of trials was evaluated using the Jadad scale plus allocation concealment. Main resultsFifteen randomized clinical trials (including a total of 845 participants) were identified in which Chinese medicinal herbs or Chinese medicinal herbs plus routine treatment were compared with routine treatment. All of these trials were published in Chinese and all included inpatients. Only three of the articles described the method of randomisation. According to the analysis result, there appeared to be benefit from Chinese medicinal herbs over control for mortality rates, operative intervention, multiple organ failure and systemic infection. But for local septic complications, there was no difference between the treatment and control. But the trials were of low quality. Authors' conclusionsSome Chinese medicinal herbs may work in acute pancreatitis. However, because the trials were of low quality, the evidence is too weak to recommend any single herb. Rigorously designed, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are required. |