Su Shan-Yu, Muo Chih-Hsin, Morisky Donald E
Department of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, No. 2 Yude road, Taichung, 40447, Taiwan.
School of Post-baccalaureate Chinese Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, 40402, Taiwan.
BMC Complement Altern Med. 2015 Apr 23;15:129. doi: 10.1186/s12906-015-0645-0.
Chinese medicine is commonly used and covered by health insurance to treat symptoms of uterine fibroids in Taiwan. This retrospective cohort study compared the consumption of conventional western medicine and medical cost between Chinese medicine (CM) users and nonusers among patients with uterine fibroids.
We extracted 44,122 patients diagnosed with uterine fibrosis between 1996 and 2010 from the National Health Insurance reimbursement database, which is a population-based database released by a government-run health insurance system. Multivariate linear regression models were used to find association between using Chinese medicine and the consumption of conventional medicine, and between using Chinese medicine and medical cost.
The total fibroid-related conventional western medicine consumed by CM users was less than that by nonusers (β = -10.49, P < 0.0001). Three categories of conventional medicines, including antianemics (-3.50 days/year/patient, P < 0.0001), hemostatics (- 1.89 days/year/patient, P < 0.0001), and hormone-related agents (-3.13 days/year/patient, P < 0.0001), were used less in patients who were CM users. Moreover, although using CM increased 16.9 USD per patient in CM users annually (P < 0.0001), the total annual medical cost for treating fibroid was 5610 USD less in CM users than in nonusers (P < 0.0001).
Our results suggested that CM reduced the consumption of conventional medicine, and might be a potential therapeutic substitute for conventional western medicines to treat uterine fibroids with low cost.
在台湾，中药常用于治疗子宫肌瘤症状且纳入医保范围。本回顾性队列研究比较了子宫肌瘤患者中使用中药（CM）者与未使用者之间的西药消费量和医疗费用。
我们从国民健康保险报销数据库中提取了1996年至2010年间被诊断为子宫纤维化的44122例患者，该数据库是由政府运营的健康保险系统发布的基于人群的数据库。使用多元线性回归模型来寻找使用中药与西药消费之间以及使用中药与医疗费用之间的关联。
使用中药的患者与子宫肌瘤相关的西药总消费量低于未使用者（β = -10.49，P < 0.0001）。三类西药，包括抗贫血药（-3.50天/年/患者，P < 0.0001）、止血药（-1.89天/年/患者，P < 0.0001）和激素相关药物（-3.13天/年/患者，P < 0.0001），在使用中药的患者中使用较少。此外，尽管使用中药使使用中药的患者每年每人增加16.9美元（P < 0.0001），但使用中药的患者每年治疗子宫肌瘤的总医疗费用比未使用者少5610美元（P < 0.0001）。
我们的结果表明，中药减少了西药的消费，可能是一种低成本治疗子宫肌瘤的潜在西药替代疗法。
