The American journal of Chinese medicine
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As of 22 February 2020, more than 77662 cases of confirmed COVID-19 have been documented globally with over 2360 deaths. Common presentations of confirmed cases include fever, fatigue, dry cough, upper airway congestion, sputum production, shortness of breath, myalgia/arthralgia with lymphopenia, prolonged prothrombin time, elevated C-reactive protein, and elevated lactate dehydrogenase. The reported severe/critical case ratio is approximately 7-10% and median time to intensive care admission is 9.5-10.5 days with mortality of around 1-2% varied geographically. ⋯ We reviewed the latest national and provincial clinical guidelines, retrospective cohort studies, and case series regarding the treatment of COVID-19 by add-on Chinese medicine. We have also reviewed the clinical evidence generated from SARS and H1N1 management with hypothesized mechanisms and latest in silico findings to identify candidate Chinese medicines for the consideration of possible trials and management. Given the paucity of strongly evidence-based regimens, the available data suggest that Chinese medicine could be considered as an adjunctive therapeutic option in the management of COVID-19.
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Review Historical Article
Potential Targets for Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Review of Qing-Fei-Pai-Du-Tang and Its Major Herbs.
COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020. No specific treatment and vaccine with documented safety and efficacy for the disease have been established. Hence it is of utmost importance to identify more therapeutics such as Chinese medicine formulae to meet the urgent need. ⋯ Two clusters of actions identified were cytokine storm prevention and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor binding regulation. The multi-target mechanisms of QFPDT for treating viral infection in general and COVID-19 in particular were validated. While large scale clinical studies on QFPDT are being conducted in China, one should use real world data for exploration of integrative treatment with inclusion of pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and herb-drug interaction studies.
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Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Herbal Medicine Treatment for Influenza: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.
The aim of this research is to evaluate the clinical evidence of an herbal medicine (HM) treatment on influenza and describe the potential benefits and adverse events by reviewing all relevant randomized controlled trials. All papers published from 2010 to 2019 in all languages in six databases were searched, including all randomized controlled trials on adults and children, testing herbal medicine for treatment of influenza, alone or in combination with conventional antiviral therapy. The main outcome parameters of interest were total effective rate, time to resolution of fever, adverse events, complications, and duration of viral shedding. 25 trials of 3044 patients were included. ⋯ HM presented fewer adverse events compared to oseltamivir, but the difference was not significant (risk difference, [Formula: see text]0.04; 95% CI, [Formula: see text]0.09 to 0.00; [Formula: see text]), and the combined treatment did not increase adverse events compared to oseltamivir (risk difference, [Formula: see text]0.02; 95% CI, [Formula: see text]0.06 to 0.02; [Formula: see text]). Research findings show that herbal medicine treatments have beneficial therapeutic effects on influenza and could decrease duration of fever and improve total effective rate. In addition, herbal medicine plus oseltamivir combined therapy could increase the therapeutic effect compared to a single treatment with oseltamivir.
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Chinese Herbal Medicines (CHM) are the most common interventions of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), typically administered as either single herbs or formulas. Systematic reviews (SRs) are essential references for evaluating the efficacy and safety of CHM treatments accurately and reliably. Unfortunately, the reporting quality of SRs with CHM is not optimal, especially the reporting of CHM interventions and the rationale of why these interventions were selected. ⋯ A total of twenty-four items (including sub-items) are included in the checklist, relating to title (1), structured summary (2), rationale (3), objectives (4), eligibility criteria (6), data items (11), synthesis of results (14, 21), additional analyses (16, 23), study characteristics (18), summary of evidence (24), and conclusions (26). Illustrative examples and explanations are also provided. The group hopes that PRISMA-CHM 2020 will improve the reporting quality of SRs of CHM.
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In December 2019, a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, causing the disease COVID-19, spread from Wuhan throughout China and has infected people over 200 countries. Thus far, more than 3,400,000 cases and 240,000 deaths have occurred worldwide, and the coronavirus pandemic continues to grip the globe. While numbers of cases in China have been steadying, the number of infections outside China is increasing at a worrying pace. ⋯ Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is grounded in empirical observations and the Chinese people use TCM to overcome these sorts of plagues many times in thousands of years of history. Currently, the Chinese National Health Commission recommended a TCM prescription of Qing-Fei-Pai-Du-Tang (QFPDT) in the latest version of the "Diagnosis and Treatment guidelines of COVID-19" which has been reported to provide reliable effects for COVID-19. While doubts about TCM still exist today, this review paper will describe the rationalities that QFPDT is likely to bring a safe and effective treatment of COVID-19.