Research advances in traditional Chinese medicine therapy for cholelithiasis / 临床肝胆病杂志

ABSTRACT

Cholelithiasis is a common disease in clinical practice. At present, surgery is the primary Western treatment method for this disease, but there are problems such as surgical trauma, a high recurrence rate, and postoperative complications. Various traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) methods for the treatment of cholelithiasis have achieved satisfactory results and have been widely used in clinical practice in recent years. This article summarizes the research advances in TCM therapy for cholelithiasis from the aspects of the understanding of cholelithiasis in TCM, TCM treatment methods for cholelithiasis and their mechanisms, and integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine therapy. It is pointed out that TCM can significantly improve or inhibit the information of cholelithiasis and has the advantages of reliable therapeutic effect, few side effects, and a low recurrence rate; however, its further application is limited by the unclear mechanism of action of TCM and defects of related clinical research such as low quality and poor repeatability. It is recommended to strengthen basic research and conduct high-level randomized controlled clinical trials in the future to provide scientific and objective evidence for clinical diagnosis and treatment of cholelithiasis and thus improve the clinical effect of TCM in the treatment of cholelithiasis.