The effect of Tongqiao Yinao decoction on postoperative cognitive dysfunction in elderly patients / 中国基层医药

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the effect of Tongqiao Yinao decoction ( TYD) on postoperative cogni-tive dysfunction in elderly patients and its underlying mechanisms .Methods 100 anesthetic patients for orthopedic surgery were randomly divided into the TYD-treated group and control group ,50 patients in each group .In TYD-trea-ted group,patients received 150mL TYD orally,twice daily for constitutive 15 days,beginning from the day of admis-sion in addition to conventional symptomatic and supportive treatment .While patients in control group received no TYD.Mini-mental state examination ( MMSE) was used to evaluate the patients′cognitive function before and after anesthesia.Meanwhile,blood samples of patients were also collected to test the expression levels of IL -6.Results There was no significant difference between the two groups before operation .However ,TYD-treated patients had signif-icantly lower incidence rate of POCD than the controls ( 20% in the control group , and 12% in the TYD-treated group;χ2 =4.332,P=0.037) 7 days after operation.The incidence rates of POCD in the TYD-treated group and control group were 30%and 38%1 day after operation ( P>0.05),28% and 20% 3 days after operation ( P>0.05),respectively.Compared with that before operation ,the blood levels of IL-6 in the two groups significantly increased 3 days after operation (control group,t=2.412,P=0.009;TYD-treated group,t=1.429,P=0.039).In contrast to the control group,the level of IL-6 in TYD-treated group declined to the baseline (the control group,t=0.851,P=0.049;TYD-treated group,P=0.404).Interestingly,compared with the controls,the TYD-treated patients had a significant lower level of IL-6 after operation (t=1.198,P=0.035).Furthermore,Pearson correlation analysis showed that change of IL-6 level in blood was negatively correlated with MMSE score (r=-0.782,P=0.022). Conclusion TYD can improve postoperative cognitive dysfunction in elderly patients ,presumably through decreasing the level of IL-6 in blood.