This article reviews the clinical studies about the
treatment of
allergic rhinitis (AR) with
traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in recent years. AR is a common and frequently occurring
disease in the department of
otolaryngology. The common manifestations of AR include nasal congestion,
sneezing,
runny nose, and nasal
itching. AR,
belonging to the category of
rhinitis, is a dominant
disease in the TCM
treatment of
otorhinolaryngologic diseases and
head and
neck diseases. The ancient
literature has laid a solid theoretical basis on the
etiology and pathogenesis of AR. According to the ancient
literature, the theoretical basis, and their own experience, modern doctors classified the causes of AR into the disorders in Zang-fu organs and six
meridians. Most of the explanations focus on the disorders in Zang-fu organs, especially the
lung,
spleen, and
kidney. The clinical studies in this field mainly involve TCM
treatment alone, integrated TCM and Western
medicine treatment, and TCM external
treatment. These
therapies have good
efficacy in the clinical
treatment of AR. Among them, TCM
treatment alone has significant advantages in alleviating the symptoms and nasal signs, declining the scores of related
scales, and reducing the
eosinophil count (EOS) of nasal
secretions, with definite long-term
efficacy. Integrated TCM and Western
medicine treatment can
complement with each other. The TCM external
treatment methods include
acupuncture,
moxibustion,
acupoint catgut embedding,
acupoint application, and
nasal irrigation with TCM, which are safe, simple, acceptable by
patients and have good
therapeutic effect. Finally, the clinical
research status of TCM
treatment of AR was summarized, and
suggestions were put forward from three aspects: standardizing the
clinical research protocol of TCM, encouraging pure TCM
research, and exploring the mechanism of TCM
treatment on the basis of frontier
research achievements. This
review aims to provide higher-level evidence for subsequent clinical
research and promote the
research on dominant AR
diseases.