Abstract
BackgroundTo evaluate the influence of combined therapy of conventional and herbal medicines on liver function.MethodsThis study was a retrospective chart review. A total of 138 patients with abnormal liver transaminase levels at the time of admission were included in this study. We evaluated the influence of combined therapy of conventional and herbal medicines on liver transaminase levels over a period of at least 2 weeks at Kyung Hee University Korean Medical Hospital. Analyses were performed using SPSS version 17.0 for Windows. Paired T-tests were used to examine the significance of differences in AST, ALT, and GGT levels at the time of admission and discharge.ResultsWe found that combined therapy reduced levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) to a statistically significant level. Specifically, there were 48, 66, 104 subjects who exhibited abnormal AST, ALT and GGT levels at admission, which was reduced to 13, 37, and 64 subjects after combined therapy, respectively. Some subjects exhibited worsening levels of liver transaminases after combined therapy, so we used the χ2 test to analyze the influence of combined therapy with conventional and herbal medicines on liver function according to initial liver transaminase levels. According to this analysis, ALT and GGT levels may be more important than AST levels in estimating the influence of combined therapy on patients with abnormal liver transaminase levels.ConclusionsBased on this retrospective chart review, combined therapy of conventional and herbal medicines would be considered relatively safe. Thus, if patients have abnormal ALT or GGT levels, caution should be taken when suggesting combined therapy with conventional and herbal medicines.
Highlights
To evaluate the influence of combined therapy of conventional and herbal medicines on liver function
We evaluated the influence of combined therapy (>2 weeks) on changes in Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) levels
*Analyzed by paired T-test, significant: P < 0.05 and herbal medicines on liver function according to initial liver transaminase levels
Summary
To evaluate the influence of combined therapy of conventional and herbal medicines on liver function. [1, 2] Some Asian countries, including Korea, even consider these natural and herbal products as medicines useful for preventing and treating various diseases. Given the growing prevalence of combined therapies of conventional and herbal medicines, a large-scale retrospective study was performed in Germany. [8] The authors of that study reported that 50.6% of 1,450 inpatients took herbal medicines at the same time as conventional Western medicine, of which 14 (0.97%) had drug-induced liver injury, the prognosis of these patients was fine. A study performed in Japan reported that only a small percentage of patients taking combined therapies of conventional and herbal medicines experience drug-induced liver injury due to herbal medicine. A study performed in Japan reported that only a small percentage of patients taking combined therapies of conventional and herbal medicines experience drug-induced liver injury due to herbal medicine. [9, 10]
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