Application characteristics and situation analysis of volatile oils in database of Chinese patent medicine

Abstract

Aromatic traditional Chinese medicines have a long history in China, with wide varieties. Volatile oils are active ingredients extracted from aromatic herbal medicines, which usually contain tens or hundreds of ingredients, with many biological activities. Therefore, volatile oils are often used in combined prescriptions and made into various efficient preparations for oral administration or external use. Based on the sources from the database of Newly Edited National Chinese Traditional Patent Medicines (the second edition), the author selected 266 Chinese patent medicines containing volatile oils in this paper, and then established an information sheet covering such items as name, dosage, dosage form, specification and usage, and main functions. Subsequently, on the basis of the multidisciplinary knowledge of pharmaceutics, traditional Chinese pharmacology and basic theory of traditional Chinese medicine, efforts were also made in the statistics of the dosage form and usage, variety of volatile oils and main functions, as well as the status analysis on volatile oils in terms of the dosage form development, prescription development, drug instruction and quality control, in order to lay a foundation for the further exploration of the market development situations of volatile oils and the future development orientation.