Efficacy of integrated Traditional Chinese Medicine and anti-retroviral therapy on immunological nonresponse in patients with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: a Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the efficacy of integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and anti-retroviral therapy (ART), a customized combination of different classes of medications which was also called cock-tail treatment, on the immunological nonresponse (INR) in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (PLWH). METHODS: Relevant literature in databases such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database (CNKI), Wanfang Digital Journal, Chinese Medical Journal Database (CMJD), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase was reviewed by two independent investigators. Data were extracted from the studies according to the eligible criteria and analyzed using Review Manager 5.3. RESULTS: Nine randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with 1078 patients were analyzed. Our analyses showed that CD4 T cell counts in the treatment group improved compared with that in the control group [mean difference (MD) = 13.51, 95% confidence interval (CI): 7.42-19.60, P < 0.0001]. There was no significant difference between the treated and control groups after 3 months (MD = 25.31, 95% CI: ?2.78 to 53.41, P = 0.08). However, after 6 and 12 months, the response of the treatment group was superior to the control group (MD = 27.45, 95% CI: 7.09-47.81, P = 0.008 and MD = 27.34, 95% CI: 6.31-48.37, P = 0.01, respectively). The clinical efficacy of the treatment group was also higher than that of the control group (RR = 1.75, 95% CI: 1.16-2.65, P = 0.007). However, CD45RO and CD45RA T cell counts did not differ significantly between the two groups (MD = 12.37, 95% CI: ?6.71 to 31.45, P = 0.20 and MD = 5.67, 95% CI: ?3.00 to14.35, P = 0.20, respectively). CONCLUSION: The combined treatment strategy of integrated TCM and Western Medicine promotes long-term reconstitution of the immune system and thus, is beneficial and has potential use for improving INR in PLWH. However, large-scale RCTs are required to provide evidence for optimal intervention strategies.

[Four hundred and eighty five cases of HIV/AIDS patients based on expert interpretation of characteristics of syndromes].

This study aims to explore HIV traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome distribution and TCM syndrome evolution. The 485 cases of HIV/AIDS patients from 10 major regions of the AIDS epidemic in HIV. In this study, the interpretation of experts to explore the TCM syndromes in different routes of infection, different stage of disease, with syndrome distribution under different interventions. The results showed that Yang deficiency of spleen and kidney and liver Qi stagnation is the most common type in the patients who with sexually transmitted infections. TCM syndrome type most commonly seen in patients infected by the blood collection is yang deficiency of spleen and kidney and spleen deficiency wet-sheng. Including Yang deficiency of spleen and kidney with the highest frequency in patients with AIDS, people who with sexually transmitted infections and patients that treated with simple HAART were prone to liver-stagnation and spleen-deficiency syndrome. In short, such as Yang deficiency of spleen and kidney, liver Qi stagnation, deficiency of both Qi and Yin, deficiency-weakness of spleen-Qi, syndrome of damt-heat ftagnation were the main AIDS syndrome types.

[Research on rules of distribution and development of traditional Chinese medicine syndromes of 2,237 HIV/AIDS cases].

HIV/AIDS patients in high prevalence areas with different routes of infection (sexually transmitted 878 cases, 527 cases of intravenous drug user, paid blood donor 652 cases) were choosen for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome investigation for one-year clinical follow-up. This paper primarily concluded the nature, location and pathogenesis of AIDS diseases. Deficiency of Yang and Yin, combining deficiency of Qi are the basic deficiency syndromes, while stagnation of dampness, toxic fire are the excess syndromes; the disease location of HIV infector is spleen, main syndrome is deficiency of spleen Qi; the disease location of AIDS patient is kidney, main syndrome is deficiency of spleen and kidney Yang. The pathogenic development tendency is from deficiency of Qi to combining stagnation of dampness and toxic fire, finally to deficiency of Qi and Yin, deficiency of Yang.

[Research progress of Chinese medicine treatment of HAART-related toxic and side effect].

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) have made great progress in rapid inhibition of HIV, reduce the morbidity and mortality, etc; while it exists many limits, such as viruses rebound after discontinuation of drug, side effects, drug-resistant. With the emergence of these problems, researchers explored therapies by traditional Chinese medicine, so as to achieve target of lower antiviral drug side effect, raising antiviral treatment adherence. Through a large number of clinical tests, we achieved encouraging effects in treating HAART related side effects by Chinese medicine.

[Research development of HIV drug resistance].

Highly active antiretroviral combination therapy significantly reduced the mortality, but in the high-speed copying, high genetic variation and drug selection pressure under the effect of the increasingly serious problem of drug resistance greatly weakened the role of HAART inhibit viral replication and reduce antiviral treatment. This paper reports the latest trends in HIV drug-resistance in order to develop anti-HIV drugs in clinical programs, research and development of new guidance anti-HIV-1 strategy to bring guidance.