ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE@#Although the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by the general population has been surveyed previously, the provision of CAM by Japanese physicians in private clinics has not been studied. Universal health insurance system was established in Japan in 1961, and most CAMs are not on the drug tariff. We aimed to clarify the current status of CAM provided by physicians at private clinics in Japan.@*METHODS@#We conducted an internet survey on 400 directors/physicians of private clinics nationwide on the provision of CAM from February 6 to February 10, 2017. Survey items included attributes of subjects, presence/absence of sections or facilities for provision of CAM, proportions of health insurance coverage for medical practices, and source of information. Private clinic was defined as a clinic run by one physician, with less than 20 beds.@*RESULTS@#Commonly provided CAMs were Kampo (traditional Japanese herbal) medicines (34.8%) and supplements/health foods (19.3%). CAMs on the drug tariff were provided in 46.5% of cases at the clinics, but only 16.5% of cases were provided CAMs which were not on the drug tariff, at different neighboring facilities. Among different specialties, Kampo medicines were prescribed at obstetrics/gynecology (54.0%), orthopedics (44.4%), and dermatology (43.0%). Clinics not providing any CAM accounted for 53.5%. With regard to health insurance coverage, 96.8% of the clinics provided only or mainly health services on the universal national health insurance tariff (29.8% and 67.0%, respectively).@*CONCLUSION@#Kampo medicines represent the most commonly used CAM in private clinics in Japan, and universal national health insurance coverage is considered to be the reason for the high rate of their use.
ABSTRACT
There had been no standardized rules for citing ethical Kampo products used in clinical trials in journal articles. Although the name of a Kampo manufacturer was described in 77.9% of research articles, the name and ratios of crude drug components of Kampo formulas were not described in 77.5% of these papers. Considering the importance of proper characterization of interventions in the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist, we hereby propose the use of the Standards of Reporting Kampo Products (STORK) website, http://mpdb.nibiohn.go.jp/stork, as a reference for Kampo products. This will provide an official source on the internet for verified information on individual Kampo formulations for citation purposes in clinical research articles.
ABSTRACT
We investigated the correlation between search terms in electronic databases and descriptors of Kampo medicine in English articles to consider what may the best expressions to search for Kampo medicine in English literature. First, we selected Kampo articles from CENTRAL of the Cochrane Library that were originally identified in Pubmed. “Medicine, Kampo” has been used as a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) in PubMed since 2000. However, among the 53 Kampo articles published there since 2000, only 13 have been indexed with the MeSH descriptor “Medicine, Kampo”. Second, we searched for the keywords “Kampo” and “Japanese (medicine)” in the literature, and investigated the correlation between these terms and the same “Medicine, Kampo” descriptor. As a result, a literature search with “Medicine, Kampo” was highly correlated with the concurrent use of “Kampo” and “Japanese” in the articles. Hence, we advocate the use of terms such as “Kampo medicine (traditional Japanese medicine)” to include both the words “Kampo” and “Japanese” in future English literatures on Kampo medicine.
ABSTRACT
The authors investigated the activity of Kikyo-to on the intestinal hormones, cholecystokinin (CCK) and secretin, released in healthy humans. The clinical efficacy of Kikyo-to on the abdominal symptoms associated with chronic pancreatitis was also investigated. In healthy volunteers, Kikyo-to (5g) significantly increased plasma CCK and secretin concentrations 30 minutes after treatment. In chronic pancreatitis patients, abdominal pain, abdominal tenderness, nausea and diarrhea were decreased by treatment with Kikyo-to (7.5g/day; divided into three doses). In conclusion, Kikyo-to improved the complaints of chronic pancreatitis, especially abdominal pain. The presumed mechanism was that Kikyo-to stimulated pancreatic exocrine secretion by the release of intestinal hormones, CCK and secretin.