Practice and principle of traditional Chinese medicine for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 / 医学前沿

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played an important role in the prevention and treatment of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in China. The integration of Chinese and Western medicine is an important feature of Chinese COVID-19 prevention and treatment. According to a series of evidence-based studies, TCM can reduce the infection rate of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in high-risk groups. For patients with mild and moderate forms of COVID-19, TCM can relieve the related signs and symptoms, shorten the period of nucleic-acid negative conversion, and reduce conversion rate to the severe form of the disease. For COVID-19 patients with severe and critical illnesses, TCM can improve inflammatory indicators and blood oxygen saturation, shorten the hospital stay, and reduce the mortality rate. During recovery, TCM can improve patients' symptoms, promote organ function recovery, boost the quality of patients' life, and reduce the nucleic-acid repositive conversion rate. A series of mechanism research studies revealed that capability of TCM to treat COVID-19 through antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects, immune regulation, and protection of organ function via a multicomponent, multitarget, and multipathway approach.

Chinese herbal medicine reduces mortality in patients with severe and critical Coronavirus disease 2019: a retrospective cohort study / 医学前沿

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in patients with severe/critical coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this retrospective study, data were collected from 662 patients with severe/critical COVID-19 who were admitted to a designated hospital to treat patients with severe COVID-19 in Wuhan before March 20, 2020. All patients were divided into an exposed group (CHM users) and a control group (non-users). After propensity score matching in a 1:1 ratio, 156 CHM users were matched by propensity score to 156 non-users. No significant differences in seven baseline clinical variables were found between the two groups of patients. All-cause mortality was reported in 13 CHM users who died and 36 non-users who died. After multivariate adjustment, the mortality risk of CHM users was reduced by 82.2% (odds ratio 0.178, 95% CI 0.076-0.418; P < 0.001) compared with the non-users. Secondly, age (odds ratio 1.053, 95% CI 1.023-1.084; P < 0.001) and the proportion of severe/critical patients (odds ratio 0.063, 95% CI 0.028-0.143; P < 0.001) were the risk factors of mortality. These results show that the use of CHM may reduce the mortality of patients with severe/critical COVID-19.