Department of Infectious Disease, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong, P. R. China.
Am J Chin Med. 2020;48(4):779-792. doi: 10.1142/S0192415X20500391. Epub 2020 May 15.
Since the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Hubei province, the epidemic scale has increased rapidly, and no effective antiviral drug therapy has been identified yet. This study aimed to evaluate the adjuvant efficacy of Natural Herbal Medicine (NHM) combined with Western medicine in the treatment of COVID-19. We performed a retrospective, 1:1 matched, case-control study of the first cohort of hospitalized COVID-19-confirmed cases (January 17, 2020 to January 28, 2020). A total of 22 of the 36 confirmed patients were included in this study, split into two groups of 11: the NHM group (NHM combined standard Western medicine treatment) and control group (standard Western medicine treatment alone). All patients received appropriate supportive care and regular clinical and laboratory monitoring. Main evaluation indicators included improvement of clinical symptoms such as fever, cough and diarrhea after hospitalization; pathogen nucleic acid test result of respiratory tract and fecal specimens of the patient after hospitalization, and change of chest CT examination after hospitalization. The duration of fever in the NHM group ([Formula: see text] days) was significantly shorter than that in the control group ([Formula: see text] days) ([Formula: see text]). During the whole hospitalization period, the number of cases with diarrhea in the NHM group (two cases) was less than that in the control group (eight cases) ([Formula: see text]). Compared with the control group ([Formula: see text]), the duration for improvement (DI) of chest CT in the NHM group ([Formula: see text]) was significantly shorter ([Formula: see text]). Our results suggest that NHM could improve the clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients and may be effective in treating COVID-19; thus, a larger, prospective, randomized, controlled clinical trial should be conducted to further evaluate the adjuvant efficacy of NHM in the treatment of COVID-19.
自湖北省发生 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）疫情以来，疫情规模迅速扩大，目前尚未确定有效的抗病毒药物治疗方法。本研究旨在评估天然草药（NHM）联合西药治疗 COVID-19 的辅助疗效。我们对第一批住院确诊 COVID-19 病例（2020 年 1 月 17 日至 1 月 28 日）进行了回顾性、1:1 匹配、病例对照研究。共有 36 例确诊患者中的 22 例被纳入本研究，分为 NHM 组（NHM 联合标准西药治疗）和对照组（单纯标准西药治疗）两组，每组 11 例。所有患者均接受适当的支持性治疗和常规临床及实验室监测。主要评估指标包括住院后发热、咳嗽、腹泻等临床症状的改善；住院后患者呼吸道和粪便标本的病原体核酸检测结果，以及住院后胸部 CT 检查的变化。NHM 组的发热缓解时间（[Formula: see text]天）明显短于对照组（[Formula: see text]天）（[Formula: see text]）。在整个住院期间，NHM 组腹泻病例（2 例）少于对照组（8 例）（[Formula: see text]）。与对照组相比（[Formula: see text]），NHM 组胸部 CT 改善持续时间（DI）（[Formula: see text]）明显缩短（[Formula: see text]）。我们的研究结果表明，NHM 可改善 COVID-19 患者的临床症状，可能对 COVID-19 有效；因此，应进行更大规模、前瞻性、随机、对照临床试验，进一步评估 NHM 治疗 COVID-19 的辅助疗效。
