Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2005; 10: 23
The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of herbal medicine in the treatment of chronic bronchitis based on evidence from RCTs.
Data sources include systematic literature search of electronic databases, reference lists of retrieved articles and contact with manufacturers of commercially available products. Inclusion criteria were RCTs of any herbal preparation, tested against placebo (or no treatment), conventional treatment or another herbal remedy in patients with chronic bronchitis or COPD. The primary outcomes were pulmonary function tests, clinical assessment of effectiveness, symptom scores, health-related quality of life and exacerbation. The methodological quality of the included RCTs was scored using the five-point Jadad scale.
Fourteen RCTs, testing 14 different herbal remedies, met all the inclusion criteria. They were categorised according to the type of control intervention used. Results from isolated studies indicated that some of the herbal remedies may be beneficial for one or more outcomes, but these results require replication. The adverse events of the herbal remedies used in these studies were either not reported or reported without sufficient details.
The effectiveness of herbal medicines as a treatment of chronic bronchitis has not been established beyond reasonable doubt. Currently, the evidence from rigorous RCTs is both scarce and methodologically weak. Considering the rise in public interest, there is an urgent need for rigorously designed clinical trials. The safety of the herbal medicines in question also requires further study.
RG’s fellowship is funded by Bionorica AG, Germany.
