Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan.
Center for Kampo Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine, 35 Shinano-machi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013;2013:576973. doi: 10.1155/2013/576973. Epub 2013 Nov 30.
Kampo medicine or traditional Japanese medicine has been used under Japan's National Health Insurance scheme for 46 years. Recent research has shown that more than 80% of physicians use Kampo in daily practice. However, the use of Kampo from the patient perspective has received scant attention. To assess the current use of Kampo drugs in the National Health Insurance Program, we analysed a total of 67,113,579 health care claim records, which had been collected by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2009. We found that Kampo drugs were prescribed for 1.34% of all patients. Among these, 92.2% simultaneously received biomedical drugs. Shakuyakukanzoto was the most frequently prescribed Kampo drug. The usage of frequently prescribed Kampo drugs differed between the youth and the elderly, males and females, and inpatients and outpatients. Kampo medicine has been employed in a wide variety of conditions, but the prescription rate was highest for disorders associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium (4.08%). Although the adoption of Kampo medicine by physicians is large in a variety of diseases, the prescription rate of Kampo drugs is very limited.
汉方药（或传统的日本医学）已在日本国家健康保险计划下使用了 46 年。最近的研究表明，超过 80%的医生在日常实践中使用汉方药。然而，从患者角度来看，汉方药的使用情况却很少受到关注。为了评估汉方药在国家健康保险计划中的使用情况，我们分析了日本厚生劳动省在 2009 年收集的总共 67113579 份医疗保险索赔记录。我们发现，汉方药占所有患者的 1.34%。其中，92.2%的患者同时接受了生物医学药物治疗。最常开的汉方药是芍药甘草汤。常用汉方药的使用在年轻人和老年人、男性和女性以及住院患者和门诊患者之间存在差异。汉方药已被用于多种疾病，但与妊娠、分娩和产褥期相关的疾病的处方率最高（4.08%）。尽管医生在多种疾病中广泛采用汉方药，但汉方药的处方率非常有限。
