Suggestions on design of evidence-based traditional Chinese medicine clinical study for new public health emergencies / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

2019 novel coronavirus(2019-nCoV) has occurred for 2 months, and seriously affected the people's health in the world. Therefore, scientific prevention and control strategies and effective intervention measures are the only ways to solve the world problem. In the determination of intervention measures, not only the effectiveness evaluation, but also accessibility, treatment cost, inventory and production capacity and other relevant sociological issues shall be considered, especially in low and middle-income countries and regions. With the introduction of clinical epidemiological experiment design and evidence-based medicine evidence evaluation into the evaluation of curative effect of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM), TCM has officially entered the studies of syndrome regularity of new public health emergencies(such as SARS and influenza) clearly diagnosed by modern medicine for many years, as well as the development of relevant guidelines, consensus and paths. The results of curative effect show that TCM could significantly alleviate symptoms, control disease and tendency, reduce the occurrence of critical illness, and improve the clinical efficacy and the prognosis and quality of life of patients, which fully reflects the consciousness and self-confidence of traditional Chinese medicine workers. For the evidence-based evaluation of TCM intervention in new public health emergencies, the basic principles and general methods of clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine shall be followed to obtain high-quality evidence; besides, we shall also fully realize that clinical scientific study is carried out with the epidemic treatment as the primary task. The scientific hypothesis comes from the clinical problems unsolved. The scientific study conclusions aim to give feedbacks to clinical diagnosis and treatment regimens. The core elements of clinical trials are population(P), intervention(I), control(C), outcome(O), which are abbreviated as "PICO". The evaluation of intervention measures for new public health emergencies with traditional Chinese medicine shall have clear study objectives and a high quality, with a correct analysis method as the guarantee of real and reliable results. Then, the selection of patients, the de-finition of intervention measures and control measures, the development of end-point indicators, the clinical quality control under special epidemics, the data verification, and the data analysis methods to be adopted are all characteristics and key points that need special consideration. It is suggested that scientific experimental design, rigorous collection and scientific data analysis shall be conducted to reflect the therapeutic value of traditional Chinese medicine, so that the study results could be adopted and shared, and become the scientific evidence for China and even the global to republish the diagnosis and treatment regimens.