Clinical efficacy of Qingyi decoction combined with DAR for the treatment of acute pancreatitis

Abstract

Objective To explore the clinical efficacy of Qingyi decoction (a preparation of Chinese herbal medicine) combined with DAR (combined use of dexamethasone,anisodamine and rhubarb) for the treatment of acute pancreatitis.Methods A total of 387 eligible patients met the criteria of acute pancreatitis were enrolled from January 2005 to April 2012 for prospective study.All patients,mild acute pancreatitis (MAP) or severe acute pancreatitis (SAP),were divided (random niumber) into four groups,namely conventional therapy (T),DAR therapy (DAR),Qingyi decoction therapy (Q) and Qingyi decoction combined with DAR therapy (Q + DAR).Outcome,fasting time,serum amylase,abdominal pain relief time,pancreatic or peri-pancreatic complications and average hospital-stay were analvzed with SPSS 13.0 statistic software.P ＜ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results None of MAP patients died.Of SAP patients,there was no difference in mortality among different groups (P ＞ 0.05).length of fasting time,tine elapsed for abdominal pain relief,time required for normalized serum amylase level and length of hospital stay in MAP patients were significantly shorter than those in SAP patients regardless of different therapies (P ＜ 0.05).Either patients of SAP or MAP treated with Q + DAR or DAR suffered shorter length of time than those treated with T or Q in respect of fasting,abdominal paiu relief,serum amylase level normalization and hospital stay (P ＜ 0.05).For SAP or MAP patients,there was no difference in abdominal pain relief time between receiving DAR and Q + DAR treatment (P ＞ 0.05),but the fasting time in Q + DAR was shorter than that in DAR (P ＜ 0.05).Patients with SAP were more likely to suffer pancreatic or per-pancreatic complications than those with MAP,but there was no difference for SAP or MAP with different treatments.Conclusions DAR or Q + DAR was an alternative to conventional treatment for MAP or SAP,and they were both superior to conventional treatment.And Q + DAR was more advantageous than DAR when fasting time,hospital-stay time and cost were considered. Key words: Acute pancreatitis; DAR; Qingyi decoction; Comprehensive treatment