1Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taipei City Hospital Ren-Ai Branch, Taipei,
Taiwan
2General Education Center, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan
3Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
4Institute of Traditional Medicine Nationa l, Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University, Taipei,
Taiwan
5Department of Pharmacy, Taipei City Hospital Ren-Ai Branch, Taipei, Taiwan
6Department of Education and Research, Taipei City Hospital
【Summary】
Background: With the pandemic of coronavirus disease rapidly spreading worldwide, it has caused a great impact on the global medical system. In May 2021, Taiwanese government announced that Taiwan had entered third-level alert state due to sudden outbreak of numerous cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases. Recent evidence implied Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) as a potential treatment of COVID-19. Here, we conducted a pilot study to investigate the efficacy of TCM combined standard care in high-risk hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
Methods: This single arm trial, recruiting patients with COVID-19 hospitalized in Taipei City Hospital Ren Ai Branch. In addition to standard therapy, all patients were given TCM formulas according to four diagnostic methods of Chinese Medicine. The primary outcome were clinical presentations, conversion time for COVID-19 viral assay and biochemical data.
Results: Ten hospitalized patients with moderate or severe COVID-19 are enrolled in this study. According to the different severity levels of COVID-19, 71.4%(5/7) of severe patients had an increase in C-reactive protein (CRP) after TCM treatment, whereas all moderate patients had a decrease in CRP. 83% (5/6) of patients with a respiratory rate less than 20 breaths per minute had a reduction inCRP after TCM treatment, and the median and interquartile range decreased from 29.2±50.6 mg/L to 3.0±28.0 mg/L. The Wilcoxon test has reached statistical significance. Conversely, the CRP values increased for patients with respiratory rates greater than 20 breaths per minute, with a median increase from 4.3±24.2 mg/L to 62.4±60.1 mg/L. The platelet (PLT) of the patients with higher
respiratory rate decreased from 296.0±543.3×1000/μL to 186.5±712.3×1000/μL after TCM treatment; In contrast, the patients with lower respiratory rate increased from 176.5±111.3×1000/μL to 189.0±144.0×1000/μL. The activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) of patients with higher respiratory rate increased from 24.5±15.9 sec to 34.5±7.1 sec after TCM treatment, while the patients with lower respiratory rate were 27.6±14.6 sec and 27.9±8.6 sec before and after treatment respectively.
Conclusion: We present the results of TCM treatment of moderately and severely hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The severity of new coronary pneumonia and the respiratory rate before treatment may influence the efficacy of TCM treatment.
【Keywords】COVID-19; traditional Chinese medicine; hospitalization; intensive