Clinical effectiveness of the Sanfu herbal patch at acupoints for respiratory diseases including otitis media in children: A pilot before-and-after study

Abstract

IntroductionMany studies have demonstrated that the Sanfu herbal patch (SHP) is effective for treating asthma and allergic rhinitis. However, no studies on its effectiveness for preventing respiratory diseases were identified in searchable databases. Therefore, a prospective, before-and-after study was conducted to investigate whether it was feasible to evaluate the effectiveness of SHP when applied in summer could prevent respiratory diseases in children in winter. MethodsThis pilot study included 60 children with a history of respiratory diseases who visited Dongguk University Korean Medicine Hospital for SHP treatment during the Sanfu Days in summer 2015, and were surveyed using a questionnaire before treatment and then again in March 2016. ResultsThere were improvements in the frequency and duration of the common cold and rhinitis and in the frequency of tonsillitis and otitis media after treatment (P<0.05). The improvement rates for the frequency and duration of the common cold were 70% and 60%, respectively. Total and component Wisconsin Upper Respiratory System Survey (WURSS)-21 scores significantly improved after treatment (P<0.05). The effectiveness rates for improvement of WURSS-21 symptom, QoL, and total score were 55.0%, 70.0%, and 66.7%, respectively. ConclusionThe effectiveness of SHP in preventing the common cold in children seems to be encouraging, but not conclusive, because of the methodological limitations of this study. Well-designed randomized controlled trials are necessary to confirm these findings. For other respiratory diseases, further research recruiting participants separately according to each respiratory disease should be conducted to validate the effects of SHP treatment.