Signaling Pathways in Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatment of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease： A Review / 中国实验方剂学杂志

ABSTRACT

Pelvic inflammatory disease （PID） is an infection of women's reproductive organs， which lasts a long time and features frequent recurrence. It is mainly caused by apoptosis， low immunity， abnormal metabolism and blood rheology indexes， and bacterial imbalance. The pathological manifestations are tissue adhesion， fibrosis， and chronic inflammation， and inflammatory response occurs in the whole process of this disease. Therefore， interfering with the inflammatory response tends to be a solution. A few therapies are available in western medicine and antibiotics are commonly used. However， antibiotic resistance is still a bottleneck in the treatment and thus the symptoms of patients fail to be obviously relieved， with pelvic tissue adhesions remained. In the treatment of inflammation， traditional Chinese medicine has remarkable effect and internal-use and external-use medicines are both used， such as oral Chinese medicinal decoction， Chinese medicine enema， Chinese medicine iontophoresis， and acupuncture. They exert therapeutic effect by regulating the conduction of related signaling pathways and influencing the expression of inflammatory cytokines. At the moment， most articles focus on the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of PID， and there is a lack of summary on traditional Chinese medicine regulation of relevant signaling pathways and the pathogenesis of PID. Therefore， by summarizing relevant research， this review proposed five signaling pathways related to the occurrence of this disease， namely， transforming growth factor-β/Smads protein （TGF-β/Smads） signaling pathway， Janus kinase/signal transducer and transcription activator （JAK/STAT） signaling pathway， nuclear factor-κB （NF-κB） signaling pathway， mitogen-activated protein kinase （MAPK） signaling pathway， and Hippo signaling pathway， and described the pathogenesis of this disease. Thereby， this study is expected to provide effective targets and ideas for the treatment of this disease.